Ted Strauss - Senior Waking Down Teacher

Well, no and yes. It’s not a downer in the sense that it’s depressing or that’s it’s all about darkness. But it is about coming down from an exclusive identification with mind and into the total ground of Being.

Picture an African Savannah with a large tree in the middle. Imagine yourself being chased by some wild animal and climbing up into the tree for safety. Now picture how scary it would be to ever risk coming down from there. In this analogy, the ground is Totality — a dangerous place where imminent death is just as real as everlasting life. If you remain exclusively focused on your ideas of enlightenment, happiness, or perfect safety, you’ll never come down to the ground of true wholeness, where life is always a double-edged sword. Mind can provide temporary shelter, but it was never meant to be our exclusive residence. In fact, I’m hoping you may have noticed that living exclusively from mind is the real danger.

Many of us live in an unconscious disposition of eternal hopefulness. We hope to find a state of enlightenment that will vanquish our fears and render our petty human problems insignificant in the face of a great Light that outshines the darkness. Or perhaps we hope for a realization that will make us feel safe and happy. I’m not suggesting there’s nothing cosmic to realize, only that what there is to realize isn’t what we were expecting.

For centuries, spiritual schools, practices, and traditions have mistaken spiritual awakening with heightened (read: improved) states of consciousness. Problem is, consciousness is not a state; it’s a pre-existing condition. Therefore it can’t be heightened, developed, achieved, expanded, or attained. Realizing consciousness sometimes (but not always) propels the realizer into a temporary state of happiness or expansion, but that necessarily wears off because there’s always the other side of the coin. Even the coin of Freedom has Bondage on the tails side. Even enlightenment can’t change the fact that Being is both Absolute and Relative.

You can realize consciousness directly and claim it as part of your whole self, along with your body and mind. But, contrary to extremely popular opinion, recognizing and owning your own awareness is not going to make you permanently happy or solve all your problems. What it will do is relieve you of the stress, expense, and whole-life depletion that goes with the apparently endless search to realize consciousness. Realizing consciousness will then provide you with the safety to allow yourself to wake down into the uncomfortable truth of your divinely human reality.

Perhaps you’re wondering what I could mean by “the uncomfortable truth of your divinely human reality”. If it’s divine or spiritual, what could be so uncomfortable? The answer is that nothing is just “divine” or 100% “spiritual”; Being is One, and so everything is everything. Everything that exists is both spiritual and material, perfect and imperfect, happy and sad, Absolute and Relative, permanent and impermanent. Including, of course, You.

At the core of your Being, you are both free and in jail. You are the universe, and you’re just this flawed and mortal human being. You are both “higher self” and “lower self”. You cannot resolve this apparent paradox because it’s who you are. It only appears as a paradox and it only appears to need resolving because it’s the developmental stage you’ve been in, because you haven’t known how to relax into totality, and because you don’t like how it feels to be you. Perhaps you always assumed that being alive (and especially being enlightened) should feel good. Or at least better than this.

The search for “better than this” is the essence of the spiritual quest. It’s what has driven humanity since the beginning, and it’s what has driven you. I’m not suggesting that there’s nothing better than this, but I am suggesting that if there’s ever to be something better, it can only come through realizing this; the feeling of being you.

Waking Down is for people who are sick and tired of striving to be better or more spiritual, but can’t help yearning to awaken. It’s for people who have begun to realize that maybe it’s not just about waking up. The down in Waking Down means that real awakening must include realizing transcendence and imminence. If you want to realize wholeness, you must be prepared to allow your own wholeness, including the parts of yourself you don’t like. You’re not going to find cosmic wholeness if you won’t allow yourself to embrace the truth of all your parts.

Realizing wholeness was supposed to feel enlightening (and it does), but I’m here to say that it’s not at all what you thought it was going to feel like. In fact, it’s so different from what you were expecting that you’ve probably been assuming your experience is proof of your lack of enlightenment. You kept throwing your own experience away by comparing it with all the hopes, dreams, and ideals you’ve been clinging to in your tree of mind.

Here’s a secret: wholeness feels the way you feel you right now. That’s right, I’m suggesting that the feeling of being you right now is the feeling of living the ultimate paradox of Being. Perhaps you feel sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes trapped and sometimes free. It’s easy to feel the good parts. but what about feeling confused, disconnected, incomplete, banished, anxious, bad, wrong, tense, bewildered, or utterly disillusioned? Such feelings don’t match our ideas of feeling “enlightened”, but until you learn to recognize and fully embrace them at the core, you’ll be perplexed. How could your intuition of the Truth and Freedom of the Infinite resolve itself with the darkness and limits of this Earthly life?

You see, that’s the secret. There’s no need for resolution. You just wanted to resolve that feeling of paradox so you could feel better, free yourself of inner conflict, or so you could feel right with yourself and the universe. But you don’t have to resolve the apparent dilemma to feel right or at home. You can feel at home with life anyway.

Waking Down is a support group for people who are ready to come down into life, with all its pains and glories. It’s a place to learn how to relax into the truth of being You. If that sounds like a downer, Waking Down may not be for you. But if that sounds good, you may have just found what you’ve been looking for your whole life: You.

©2008 Ted Strauss

Presenter: Sandra Glickman
Senior Waking Down Teacher

“Intimate Inquiry” talk and exploration, from 2009 Transfiguration Retreat

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“Embodiment” talk and exploration, from 2008 Transfiguration Retreat

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Presenter: Sandra Glickman
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“Toward Deepening & Awakening” talk / exploration, from 2008 Transfiguration Retreat

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by Krishna Gauci

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This was originally a letter written to some folks involved in the Waking Down in Mutuality Process, but could be useful to anyone wondering about the role of techniques and methods in the process of an organic spiritual unfolding:

What exactly is “Skill In Means” or “Skillful Means” about? I think it’s important to know that the ideal of Skill In Means (in the context of how it originally arose in Mahayana Buddhism) is not essentially about learning techniques or methods to help others, but is rather something very different. It is about the innate capacity of someone with an Awakening Consciousness (Bodhichitta) to GENERATE whatever very specific and different ways of expression and teaching are needed for every specific student. That is something very different than learning techniques and methods that can be applied to all students. It is actually the opposite of having methods transform students; it is having students transform methods.

Skill in Means is not any of the techniques themselves, nor is it all of the techniques taken together. It is acting from The Heart Of Compassion where the teaching is a response to a student’s needs, rather than acting from a pre-existing therapeutic, psychological or spiritual structure that is being used to diagnose and treat them.

It is an organic aspect of Bodhichitta (Awakening Consciousness) that is the integrating factor among all the grab bag of techniques and ways of teaching, rather than simply a name for the grab bag itself. Skill in Means is not a product of the thinking, planning, preparing, discursive and constructing mind, rather it is teaching as a response to the other, dependent on the other, not on techniques of a psychological or spiritual school of thought.

I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with learning and including techniques and methods from various sources.

Nor am I advocating that we exile all systems of therapeutic (or spiritual) diagnosis. But I am suggesting that we recognize that while they may be helpful in specific cases, they are not the thing in itself and they come with their own conceptual baggage.

Waking Down in itself is not a therapeutic paradigm even if and when we use techniques from therapeutic sources.

When this is not understood, there can be a danger of “laying the trip” of a therapeutic (or other) paradigm, and subtly pathologizing each other’s human patterns. I feel this is so even with the more humanistic, new age (or channeled) categorizations, thought systems and maps.

Skillful means, and good WDM teaching does not consist in getting training in as many therapeutic modalities and personality maps as possible and then diagnosing and curing students…. That’s therapy.

“The teaching gets pulled out of the teacher by the hunger of the student” is the real essence of WDM teaching (and real skillful means). What this amounts to is an interdependent relationship in non-separateness giving birth to unique teaching in accordance with the unique situation. Another way to say this is that the Divine (The Divine Other that includes self and other) does the teaching, in non-separation through us.

One of the things that struck me with Saniel Bonder’s early teaching work was not that he had a tool kit of techniques, but rather that he was in relationship with everyone. The teaching that happened with people was generated in his experience of self and other realization as the Goddess… and his promise to awaken Her one soul at a time.

There is in this an arduous and deep trust in ourselves (and Life) that is needed to be able to access that kind of connection. And this is the real import, (which is often unrecognized and unseen by students) in the process and training that goes into becoming a WDM teacher. That is the deepest ability that is passed on and taught to teachers. There is a good argument to be made that it takes more to do that than to become skillful at a number of techniques or therapeutic modalities.

Confidence in our connection to the Divine, a deep trust in the transmission, and an ability to hear the other in non-separateness is the essence of this work…and it can’t exactly be taught as techniques or methods can. It’s leaning into the source from which dharma is generated.

It seems to me that learning to lean into this is harder to quantify, more mysterious and not cut and dry. It means establishing, developing and relying on a more intuitive sense of Onlyness, however we personally experience that, and continually deepening it.

Remember how untamed and inconvenient this work is. It is Living Spirit.

While I welcome the desire to include methods and techniques into the work to help others (I have been doing this in my own way), This teaching is not techniques or systems but rather it is Living Being/Spirit/Transmission and (in That) Living Relationships.

My sense is that it is only this connection to the living Transmission that can become the organic (rather than constructed) integration of all these methods, modalities and techniques. This Transmission of the Goddess does not pathologize through diagnosis, and This Transmission has seen fit to awaken very imperfect messy human beings and does so quite perfectly.

As we include methods from outside This Transmission let us remember that the transmission of this Goddess awoke us in our messiness when techniques and respectable psychology (and traditions) did not. She did not turn us away in our imperfections, She awoke us in them and She is wild and messy Herself.

And while we bring the masculine into this work if we saddle her with an overly tame civilized male she will either die of boredom or will eat him for lunch. The only husband who can meet Her is Shiva… a wild, messy and smelly dude himself!

© 2007 Krishna Gauci, Senior Teacher of Waking Down in Mutuality
www.wakingdown.org/KrishnaGauci/
www.krishnasatsang.com

by Saniel Bonder

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The idea of waking up is a part of many spiritual teachings. It is associated with the endeavor to get spiritual, conscious, awake, enlightened, free, or somehow escape the perceived prison of the phenomenal world of body, emotion, and mind as you experience it. There are innumerable methods to achieve such changes. In general, waking down, as we live and offer it, is different in that you “fall” into your fundamental transcendent nature and your bodily, human personhood simultaneously. Instead of trying to get out of life, you realize more and more that you are infinite transcendental Being concretizing, crystallizing, and incarnating as a divinely human person. The phrase waking down signals that this is very different from trying to rise out of this world and all your karmas here into some other state or dimension. In this process, you directly realize and bring the infinite divine reality to life.

And, if you bring that infinite or unconditioned quality of Being to life in real, authentic ways, you wind up becoming deeply receptive to others, and profoundly communicative about this, especially with others who are doing the same themselves. This is what we call mutuality. Because life is not just about the self, or even the great Self. Here’s a huge part of the mystery: many of us are under the impression that upon getting fundamentally enlightened in that non-finite Self or Truth, we will then somehow be free of all the impositions and challenges of relating to others. After all, they would just be part of our real Self, right? But it’s not that way. In the relative plane, otherness leaps forward to claim its dues from anyone who is deeply, authentically bringing the infinite identity to life. And it requires you to relate to others as a relative self who does not know them in any perfect sense, not just as a big infinite Self who is supposedly free of such mundane obligations. Mutuality, especially with people who are living at the same evolutionary depth you are, becomes a huge commitment and undertaking.

Thus, we speak of waking down in mutuality as a singular, multi-faceted process, path, and life-work.

Saniel Bonder, Founding Teacher of Waking Down in Mutuality
www.wakingdown.org/SanielBonder/
www.sanielandlinda.com

by Krishna Gauci

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Question:

What is the best way for further development after the second birth and what do you say about using other more traditional spiritual maps as well?

Reply:

You asked: “What do you say about using other more traditional spiritual maps as well?”

Above all, Dare to trust your own Total Being.

Waking Down in Mutuality honors traditional Dharma maps even as it challenges the notion that we in the west can use them without taking into account our own unique twenty-first century post modern individuality. It suggests that the kind of human beings we are now are so different from those addressed by those maps that to confine ourselves to their vision is to leave entire aspects of ourselves unaddressed. Understanding this we can make great use of ancient dharma while remaining true to all of what and who we are.

None of the limitations of these maps need define us. As far as that goes, none of our own limits act as any sort of definition of what this school is or can become. We are at a unique juncture in history in which we have before us all the spiritual teachings of the world. I would suggest that we can use them all without harm only if we are careful to acknowledge all of who we are as individuals, divine and human.

You also asked: “What is the best way for further development after the second birth”

Your own mission will make itself know to you as you follow the impulses of Being. It’s important to recognize that your life is waiting to be discovered and that you have unique gifts to bring forth. In many ways Waking Down in Mutuality is NOT a school in the usual sense because it is ultimately you who shapes the direction of your explorations in the 2nd life.

This is very exciting as you alone bring to this process your experience and truth. There is a very real and living energy of mutual transformation in the process our being together in this deep honesty. There is an alchemical magic in mutuality. We end up functioning as channels of continuous revelation, transmission and Divine communion with one another. In these specially dedicated friendships the spirit of guidance can make itself felt to each of us personally. Invoking the inner guru through relationship with each other, rather than a single teacher, we are both the gift and the giver. There is the invitation to all by Saniel and the community to “change us and be changed by us”. I have found this to be delightfully true when I only half believed it, but I could only grasp the extent of it’s potential by taking risks and being willing to share who I was in my fragile human nature. The challenge of doing this in heart to heart meetings continues to be incredibly potent for me.

YOU are the Waking Down in Mutuality process and THIS conversation is part of the curriculum of this school. Saniel’s explorations may be a starting point, but you must both make and discover your own way. The key is that when you are honest you add to the richness of others as well as yourself. Mutuality gives you existential sounding boards, not just for the ideas of your mind, but for all of you. It gives us the space to witness ourselves share our ideas and feelings in a context bigger than our own experience and have them reflected back to us from multiple perspectives. Sometimes it isn’t comfortable or easy, but it is through daring to be yourself that you take your place in and as part of life. Taking the risk of not being understood or appreciated by sharing both how you agree with and differ from others is the way into fuller incarnation and the environment of mutuality is the container that makes it safe.

This is what comes next as much as anything else. It is the very individual and unique adventure of coming forth and incarnating in mutuality.

© 2004 Krishna Gauci, Senior Teacher of Waking Down in Mutuality
www.wakingdown.org/KrishnaGauci/
www.krishnasatsang.com

by CC Leigh

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Introduction
The following is an outline of some of the stages people experience as they are unfolding in their process of spiritual awakening, especially as they show up in people who are moving in the direction of embodiment–the simultaneity of being both the free, unbound dimension of their nature and the very human emotional body/mind. Depending on the current focus of your own personal inquiry, you may or may not find this relevant to you right now. I present this because being aware of the general territory and trajectory of spiritual unfoldment can provide some confirmation and understanding of your personal process wherever you find yourself on this map. Plus, having a realistic framework of the larger process can help you continue to evolve in the most auspicious manner.

There are many different maps of awakening to the infinite, transcendent dimension of our human potential, and they do not all point to the same outcome. What I set forth below reflects my own experience and what I have observed in the students I have had the privilege of working with. My intention here is to put forth a working model of embodied awakening that neither is so esoteric that it is impossible to grasp nor so generalized as to render discrimination pointless. It could be called an expanded Waking Down map.

There is a great deal of confusion in the world of spiritual teachings due to insufficient discrimination of three important aspects of what we might call “Consciousness” (or the Absolute, or I AM). These three aspects are Awareness, Being, and Heart (which will be further described below). It is possible to experience an awakening to the infinite through any of these three aspects. While they are all quite valid and all reflect a significant departure from a narrow identification with self as a separate, discrete autonomous unit, the subjective experience of Awareness, Being, or Heart will differ significantly. There is often a tendency to assume that awakening to one aspect is total-the ultimate condition-thus overlooking further potentials for growth and discovery.

In this investigation I am drawing from a number of spiritual teachers, including Aziz Kristof who has a remarkable ability to discriminate subtle states and phases of awakening, and most significantly upon my own experiences with Waking Down in Mutuality (which was originated by Saniel Bonder). While I wish to give credit where credit is due, I take full responsibility for what I set forth here as this working model.

We do well to keep in mind that every type of awakening normally has three phases: first is the shift to the new state itself, sometimes called a glimpse (Illumination)-an enhanced or exalted condition which reveals something previously unknown to the experiencer and then sooner or later fades. Next is the subsequent stabilization of the new state which might better be called a stage shift-this is when the condition is always effortlessly so (Realization) . Within this stage we might distinguish three possible sub-categories: “transcendent” in which Consciousness is experienced to be witnessing or registering everything without identifying with the body-mind; “embodied feeling” in which Consciousness registers everything while being also fully present in and as the feelings of the body-mind; and “second birth” in which the embodied feeling Consciousness recognizes itself to be inherently seamless with and non-separate from everything else. Waking Down in Mutuality cultivates the embodied experience, while recognizing that a period of transcendent awakening is often a precursor to embodied awakening. Finally, there is further integration which follows upon stabilization as the whole being is reconfigured in light of the new condition (Actualization). The first shift is a sudden occurrence and the others are almost always gradual. There is a common tendency to mistake initial sudden shifts for a stabilized condition. In the Waking Down practice of evaluating awakenings there is often the caveat “let’s see how it shows up over time”-which allows for the possibility that an awakening might not yet be stabilized fully and still needs some further cultivation.

In Waking Down in Mutuality, the term “Consciousness” with a capital “C” is used rather generically to refer to that which is non-finite, unbound, unconditioned, Witness, Source, or Divine, and it may be used at times interchangeably with “Being” (though I’ll be using this term in a more specific way for the purposes of this discussion). It is that which appears to be separate from matter and manifestation but actually is inseparably interwoven, such that neither exists independently. This unity, or “Onlyness,” is described by Saniel as the “sacred marriage” of infinite Consciousness and finite matter. Much of the emphasis of the Waking Down work has been focused on the very human, personal experience of awakenings that are embodied-very much a “both/and” expression of this sacred marriage. This is a rather radical departure from classic or traditional descriptions of enlightenment (which typically focus more on states of consciousness than on the human experience and expression of the awakened condition). The Waking Down community is collectively bringing a strong new voice to a “divinely human” potential that quite possibly has never manifested on earth prior to this time.

(A note on capitalization: many special terms are used herein and the temptation is to capitalize all of them. To keep things somewhat simple, certain names will be capitalized: Waking Down in Mutuality, for instance, and the names of the various stages introduced below. In addition, I have capitalized words referring to the non-finite, unbound, empty, unchanging, unconditioned, free, or divine-essence dimension of what we are, in order to distinguish what’s being referred to from tangible, relative, changing reality. For instance, “Consciousness” with a capital “C” refers to the impersonal and universal dimension, whereas “consciousness” with a small “c” refers to one’s personal awareness. The use of capitals in this regard by no means indicates a preference for, or superiority, of one over the other, since both the essence and the manifestations of that essence, are divine. Ultimately there is no way to determine where one ends and the other begins since both are totally interpenetrating and inseparable.)

Phases of Embodied Awakening
What follows is a broad, simplified overview of human spiritual development. Much like a fractal, were we to zoom in on any stage described below we would be able to distinguish many more subtleties and aspects than are here described. While there is a rough sort of linearity about the awakening process, the various elements will show up in different ways and timing for each different person-and some elements may not show up at all. Still, it is often useful to have a conceptual framework of what’s happening as a support for your own unique unfoldment into your divinely human potential.

First life. This is the stage of life that spans our development through infancy and childhood into adulthood. It would include the learning of many skills and also the progression through puberty into sexual maturity. It includes being “socialized” such that one learns patterns of adaptive behavior that further survival and success in the social world. And it may include the development of a spiritual awareness through participation in organized religion or through independent study, inquiry, and practice-possibly carried to high levels of refinement. However, this stage of unfoldment is characterized by ignorance of our full nature and primary identification with the thinking mind and self-concept (ego).

The reason for this ignorance of our true nature is partially a result of a natural and inevitable process that occurs early in childhood called “loss of Being.” It results when some intrinsic, essential, and divine aspect of the child is not seen or reflected back by the parents (usually quite unintentionally and innocently). Because of that lack of mirroring, the quality never comes fully awake and available, and stays hidden in the background. The child subconsciously detects that “something’s missing, or something’s wrong about me” and begins to undertake strategies to try to get or earn what’s perceived to be missing. What drops out of awareness is one’s inherent, true, and perfect divine nature. What forms instead is a strategy of “trying” to be or get what appears to be lacking. This sense (which generally lies below the threshold of awareness) of “something’s wrong or inadequate about me and I need to do something about it” carries into our adult lives and fuels much of our human activities, including strategies to avoid feeling the discomfort or shame of it.

Illuminations. These experiences of heightened perception, illuminating insight, visitations by divine entities or essences, or blazes of consciousness can occur at any time along the way, sometimes as a result of cultivation and sometimes spontaneously without any prior effort, by grace or through the transmission of an awakened person. Illuminations give us the gift of a radical shift of perspective, or a direct experience of that which transcends our ordinary, familiar frameworks of understanding. A “glimpse” of the cosmic perspective will often seem so freeing and uplifting that, after it fades, the experiencer begins seeking ways to regain what was experienced and lost, and attempting to make that into a permanent condition. Illuminations, however, are states of consciousness that are by nature transient and ever changing, as opposed to stages of development, which are permanent, irreversible transformations. Much confusion exists over this distinction. Remember that a variety of states from the mundane to the mystical are available to all people (at least in theory) at any stage of their evolution. Stages, however, unfold in a more-or-less linear fashion, always proceeding toward greater evolutionary complexity and coherence.

Deconstruction. This is a phase, called “the rot” in Waking Down circles, wherein the strategies and systems of value that carried one through the first life to this point begin to prove somehow insufficient or inadequate to address the deeper issues of life that are now presenting themselves. It is as if the hidden, sleeping essence-nature or Being that had lain dormant since childhood begins to stir, causing ripples in one’s outer life. This may show up as an intuition that one is more than just one’s thoughts or personality, coupled with a longing to discover one’s true nature. And it may proceed into frustration or despair when one’s spiritual aspirations are not realized-perhaps after long years of dedicated practice. One begins to get a sense that the will-based techniques and strategies that worked in the past no longer work, or just don’t work for you in particular, or you begin to sense how powerless you are to control outcomes. Not just a time of life challenge, this is a profound spiritual passage where the patterned ways of thinking and acting formed in childhood are being loosened up by the evolutionary action of Being itself-creating the possibility of something new coming to life. Where most spiritual teachings recommend discipline and practice to free up energy and attention for deeper self-investigation, Waking Down has discovered that the natural and organic operation of this phase of deconstruction accomplishes a similar result with little overt effort.

What one rots into at this stage is the “core wound.” Although our sense of our unbounded divine essence may be beneath the threshold of our ordinary awareness, we still carry some intuition of it. As this subtle sense or intuition is juxtaposed against what we usually experience of ourselves as patterned, limited, finite human beings, there is a sort of “rub” or existential tension right at the core of our sense of who we are. A sense of “not okayness” often accompanies this core wound, and there may be feelings of confusion, separateness, and insufficiency as well. The source of these feelings is a complete mystery to most people, and has led to concepts like “original sin.” However, there is nothing sinful about this condition, as it is a natural and inevitable consequence of a unique human attribute: the inherent ability to be, or become, fully conscious of our divine essence as it is expressed in our human forms.

Before that happens, there is only the subtle sense of distress at the core, and this feeling is instinctively resisted and avoided-that is until we rot out of that avoidance and into a dawning recognition that it cannot be avoided forever. Facing and falling into the core wound opens the door for the quantum shift of embodied awakening.

Realization. This is a transformative passage wherein the individuated person is beginning to demonstrate a greater capacity for experiencing their true nature as simultaneously infinite Consciousness and finite, human body-mind. Depending on their natural proclivities or perhaps because they have been directed in a particular way by a spiritual teacher, the avenue of access to the infinite may be through any of the following aspects of Consciousness:

Awareness or Presence. Awareness is where Consciousness touches the personal through the avenue of the personal mind (small “c” consciousness) and its thoughts. Awareness, which is centered in the head, makes the activity of the mind possible. Sometimes called the Witness, Awareness is without boundary, form, or content, and is continually registering everything which is arising as thoughts, feelings, and sensations in the field of perception, memory, and fantasy. Attention is one of its attributes, as is intelligence, and its primary quality is light-the light of clarity that permits anything to be experienced or known. Normally attention is completely absorbed with the objects it is focused upon, however it is possible for a relaxing of that absorption to occur, allowing Awareness to become self-evident and the sense of Presence to come awake. Awareness is accessed through active noticing and self-inquiry, and is generally the easiest aspect to awaken to.

Being. Being is where Consciousness touches the personal through the avenue of the body and its felt sense of aliveness or existence. Being is naturally more impersonal in nature-as the life-current it is the same for all beings, and is also without boundary, form, or content. It provides our sense of existence in space-time, and its attributes include instinctual knowing, the sense of “now,” stillness and peace, and the recognition of being non-separate from all of life and form which leads to deep trust in Being. Its primary quality is the feeling of life itself. Being is accessed passively, through resting, surrendering, or abiding in the deep Ground of Being.

At its deepest, through the mechanism of surrender and grace, the experience of Being gives way to dissolving into Source itself (sometimes called the Absolute): our original home of bottomless peace.

Heart. Heart-essence is where Consciousness, as the Divine, the Mother, the Goddess, or the Beloved, touches the personal through the avenue of emotions and subtle feelings. Heart is multi-dimensional and its awakening may involve many steps to help it heal from the wounds it has sustained as a highly sensitive center of feeling. Its attributes include intuition, radiance, warmth, tenderness, gratitude, and compassion, and its primary qualities are unconditional love and grace. Heart can be accessed energetically through giving it attention, and through prayer and invocations which connect the individual with the Divine through the feeling of deep longing.

The Second Birth: Regardless of which aspect of Consciousness is awakened first, embodied realization is said to have occurred when the sense of being an isolated, separate individual identified solely with the thinking mind has been superceded by a sense of being paradoxically both infinite Consciousness and finite, here-now human being, and a recognition that one is non-separate from and of the same essence as all of creation. This is realized both experientially through various possible types of revelatory experience, and also tacitly, as a continual background knowing that co-exists with whatever else is in the foreground of one’s attention. This awareness of both levels simultaneously reflects a new capacity to experience paradox and, when combined with the recognition of the seamlessness of internal and external reality, inaugurates a stage (not a state) of evolution called the “second birth” in Waking Down terminology. Although this shift is permanent and irreversible, it is also just a birth, and requires integration for its full potential to be realized.

Further Evolution
It is only after awakening to our divinely human nature that we have our Self -an established center of feeling-awareness that can now more directly participate in the co-creation of our evolution and our experience in the manifest world of things and relationships. Before that, we are rather unconsciously identified in the more automatic functioning of our thinking and reacting mind, and we’re living more or less exclusively out of acquired, conditioned patterns rather than from our essential nature.

Actualization. For most people, Realization does not provide instant transformation such that one’s life becomes a perfect expression of what was recognized in the Awakening experience itself. The conditioned patterns of behavior are too subconscious and deep rooted for that to be the case for any but the extremely rare few. Instead, Realization is just the beginning of another, even more intensified period of re-configuration of the body-mind to allow greater freedom and range of expression. This has been colorfully labeled by Saniel as the “wakedown shakedown.” This phase continues for years after Realization. The initial years of repeatedly encountering (and being humbled by) the most limited, deeply shadowed areas of the body-mind give way gradually to a natural rhythm of investigating patterns as they surface, knowing that the goal isn’t to be completely rid of them but to live with increasing freedom and possibility in the face of them. Over time, the “human” self becomes more tenderized and permeable to the light or radiance of Consciousness-and more able to be an expression of the qualities of freedom, truth, self-expression, compassion, beauty, aliveness, creativity, etc., according to each individual’s inherent nature.

In addition to gaining an increased freedom in the midst of our basic human tendencies, the period of actualization is a time when the experience of Consciousness becomes more evident in our day-to-day lives as well. A useful analogy is that of a lamp with a dimmer switch: at the time of the second birth it is as if the lamp of Consciousness is switched on, but set on the low setting. While it never goes out, it can be overshadowed at times by strong thoughts or emotions. Over time with further cultivation and as more energy is freed up through the action of the wakedown shakedown, the light gets turned up ever brighter until it shines through all of our experiences and is no longer able to be significantly overshadowed by the ups and downs of our changing moods, thoughts, and emotions.

Most people will initially awaken through one, or sometimes a combination of two, aspects of Consciousness according to what is most natural to their nature. This initial awakening is a great achievement, no question, and may be the fulfillment of their Soul’s purpose for this lifetime. However, a more comprehensive awakening is possible for those who find themselves so moved. It involves exploring the other aspects of Awareness, Being, or Heart that weren’t initially clear in order to awaken those, as well.

Worth specific mention here are three avenues of further development in the second birth that provide opportunities for a more complete awakened experience. Development in any of these areas may be-and ideally is-undertaken prior to the second birth as well as following it, but development in these areas cannot and will not reach full potential until there is awakened Presence with which to engage these elements fully.

1. Awakened Heart. Although there may be an initial “fall” into the Heart as a part of the awakening process, the full awakening of radiant Heart-essence is a complex process that must evolve over time. Awakening cannot be complete without awakening the Heart, because the Heart is the seat of the Soul and also our connection to the Divine and to unconditional love. Some people awaken to the other aspects of Consciousness without awakening Heart-essence, but there is an aloofness or austerity with regard to the personal dimension of life if the Heart is not also included. Heart-awakening requires healing work that includes re-parenting by one’s self and also by others to help sooth and heal the wounds we acquired throughout life, especially in childhood. Only by facing and addressing the places where we closed off our tender hearts (and developed reactive patterns for self-protection) can we allow Heart to reopen to the receiving and giving of love, caring, and deep compassion for ourselves and for one another.

As we evolve and move through different layers and dimensions of our totality, we may find our center of identity shifting through ego, Presence, Ground of Being, or even the Absolute. We are all these. And within all that we are, we find the center of our unique personal identity dwelling in the Heart. It is our Soul, which can only fully recognize itself after the Realization of Presence and Being, and after the Heart center is opened along with its profound sensitivity. The Soul, as the meeting point between infinite Consciousness and finite matter, partakes of both-experiencing the Onlyness and the separation simultaneously in an endless Mystery of dynamic creation.

2. Awakened Mutuality. Once we have learned to gently be in Presence with our personal feelings, thoughts, emotions, impulses, and reactions, the next major phase of our evolution is to bring this self-awareness and compassionate Presence into all our relationships-not just to be nice to one another, but because other people are now seen to be intrinsically non-separate from one’s self. Therefore their pain is our pain, so to speak-and this becomes ever more evident as our hearts open in their capacity to sense and feel others. Mutuality is more than patience and understanding; it is a vivid encounter between Self and other in which there is a commitment to expressing one’s own truth as genuinely as one can, while also making room for the other to do the same. Mutuality is a practice where more and more aspects of ourselves-including our divinity-come alive through our interactions with one another. It involves risk and daring, and it requires courageous willingness to act from integrity, and stay present even in the face of discomfort, without any assurance of outcome. It is not some utopian ideal. It is very challenging, and also very enlivening, and it does create the possibility of a powerful sort of deep intimacy that is still rare on planet earth.

3. Awakened Purpose. After the second birth Realization, our most tender, innocent, genuine self is available to a greater degree than ever before. We may find that we are rather clueless about “who we are” at that point, and discover many new things about what works for us as we take risks and try out new ways of being and communicating that are more authentic. During the Actualization passage, we will inevitably find ourselves alternating between times of authentic self-expression and times of automatic response based upon prior conditioning. Sooner or later, the impulse of Being itself will move us to step up more fully to our Life, and to encounter our destiny. Saniel speaks of this as the “Avataric Ordeal” or the “Force of Destiny’-the manner in which our purpose lands upon us with finality that is inescapable. Our attempts to live small and avoid this encounter ultimately prove futile. And whether the outer appearance of our lives is grand or simple, what’s important at this stage is the fundamental encounter with issues of choice, meaning, and personal power.

Enlightenment? There are many degrees and subtleties of the Mystery that can be discovered by one who seeks to take their awakening as far as humanly possible. This map is not intended to be comprehensive so much as practical. The further we go in our collective love, investigation, and expression of awakened Being, the more we realize that idealized descriptions of “enlightenment” as some sort of a static, utopian state are more fantasy than reality. They represent the ever-receding ideal, and we’ve come to realize that as we are evolving collectively, our descriptions of enlightenment need to evolve with us and reflect what is real, tangible, and possible now without reducing the concept to something meaningless or hollow.

What we’ve been discovering through our collective practice of Waking Down in Mutuality are greater degrees of wholeness, trust, autonomy, and freedom of expression, profound compassion for the difficulties of being here as conscious beings, and relationships that are richer, more authentic, and more fulfilling than anything we had dreamed of. The second birth awakening is the beginning step of a genuine nondual realization that has far-reaching potentials we are just beginning to tap in our mutual explorations. It’s real, it’s compelling, and no one who really engages it seems to be willing to give it up (as if they could). Waking Down in Mutuality is a very practical and accessible path of awakening to our paradoxically divine-and-human nature in a culture of people who are doing the same. It may or may not look like the “enlightenment” you expected, but the more you look, the more beauty you will find. May this map of embodied awakening help guide you in the fulfillment of all that your heart deeply desires.

CC Leigh, Senior Teacher of Waking Down in Mutuality
www.wakingdown.org/CCLeigh

Jean Marchand - Waking Down Teacher

It was like waking up from sleep or recovering from amnesia. I could not have imagined ever getting something as abstract as what all the ancient and current philosophers describe as Enlightenment, Self Realization or Being in the Now, so easily. I was ecstatic. However, I was also afraid that I might lose this precious self-realization. It was blazing in its presence, yet delicate and tender. I did not want to ever lose it again. After a few months I became confident in the presence of I Am and lost the fear that I may lose this awareness. It, the awareness, was ever present as the observer to my every moment.

However, there was still something missing. This is where the Advaitans and I part company. They would say that there is nothing missing in this realization. I agree there is nothing missing because it includes everything. However, even in this realization of I AM the self, I still had (have) to deal with the mundane everyday problems of day-to-day life and relating to others. My buttons were and are still being pushed and I was (am) still triggered by others and events over which I have no control. I had a strong desire to withdraw and abide in the silence of the self, but who was going to look after my family and responsibilities? I still had feelings and desires that parts of me did not want to deny even though I Am Consciousness. This created a very real and uncomfortable dilemma for the human part of me. I was living in a paradox of being simultaneously infinite yet finite. It felt like something wasn’t right, and I didn’t know what it was or what to do about it. I felt frustrated and could not understand why after such a huge awakening I still had uncomfortable feelings which were difficult to ignore. I felt split.

Luckily for me, a friend whom I had led through the same advaitic process which I had learned to do, told me about Saniel Bonder and the Waking Down web site. Upon visiting the site on Feb. 23, 1999, I immediately felt that this teaching might provide the missing piece to my problem. I ordered Saniel’s book, Waking Down, and immediately entered into contact with one of Saniel’s teachers, Ted Strauss. Ted helped me to start feeling into what Saniel calls the Core Wound. This is the wound which every body on the planet carries, and I would venture to guess is the major cause of most problems that humans perpetrate on each other and the planet. Feeling into the Core Wound was very challenging, uncomfortable and frightening. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, shortly after starting to work with Ted on the phone, and I was sure I was going to die. I started hyperventilating and felt the starkness of Being here in a body. It was terrifying.

Two weeks after entering into contact with Saniel and Ted, I landed in San Francisco on March 12, 1999, to attend a Waking Down Weekend, a three-day intensive workshop. Just being with Saniel and the other teachers on Friday evening was very potent, but little did I know how potent. The next day as I gazed with Pascal, one of the teachers, I fell into a place that brought up an abundance of tears and sorrow. I didn’t know what was going on, but I could sure feel my existential pain.

That afternoon when we broke up into small groups we each took turns feeling into what was going on inside and sharing with the group. As I felt into my pain, it was as if a dam of sorrow broke wide open and engulfed my entire being. Ted asked me, “Do you want to be here?” As I felt into the question, in the midst of overwhelming sorrow I realized that part of me did not want to be here in a human body because it was just too painful and limiting. Ted asked me again, “Do you want to be here?” I again felt into the question and this time I surrendered into the excruciating pain of being here in a body. I fell into the Core Wound. It was unbelievable. There I was, infinite, feeling trapped in a limited, finite body. I felt as if Iwas being crucified. I have never, ever felt such an intense and devastating pain. Yet the bizarre paradox was that interspersed throughout the pain was a bittersweet Joy, the Bliss of Consciousness. My heart was blown wide open. The Love I felt for the others in the room was unlimited. I looked into each of their eyes and felt their pain. I felt their pain of being here in a body. As I looked at them waves of sobbing overcame me. Their pain was my pain. There was no feeling of separation. I stayed in that tender vulnerable place in the heart for the rest of the weekend and several days after. As a matter of fact, I have never left that place of vulnerability in the heart. I am just more selective about who I am vulnerable with. Now I am more discriminative about being wide open in Love with everyone.

Two days later on March 17, I awoke in the middle of the night to realize that Being had landed here in my body. The feeling of being separate from my body and the world was gone. I now had permission to show up here on this planet as Being in a body, not separate from the body. What a relief. I had entered what Saniel calls my Second Birth. It was okay to be here. It was okay to feel the wound of being here now in all of its limitations. The Core Wound had become the Conscious Wound. What a “Great Relief,” as Saniel calls it. I no longer want to escape to a cave in the Himalayas. Occasionally withdrawing into the silence of Being suffices. I am deeply grateful for the profound silence which always resides in my heart, my body and my mind. Life is more relaxed and enjoyable now than it’s ever been. The moments of being vulnerable and feeling my own pain and another’s pain are there more than ever, but I’m not trying to avoid it. Now my mission is to help my fellow humans to awaken to who they truly are, like I did, thus answering Excerpts from the Second Birth the question once and for all, “Qui es tu (Who are you)?” And by the way I did get the concept. “God is Everywhere.”

~ Jean Marchand (excepted from the book, Dancing in the Fire: Stories of Awakening within the Heart of Community by Bob Valine)

Waking up is associated with getting enlightened or free by rising out of imprisonment in your karma, body-mind, and relationships, even this whole world. It’s an ancient spiritual impulse in us humans.

Waking down differs from waking up out of life. In it, you “fall” simultaneously into impersonal Being and your bodily personhood. Then you bring that infinite Self-realization into life. And you do that in relational mutualityOther-realizationwhich becomes powerfully transformative.

Saniel Bonder
Founder
Waking Down in Mutuality