Is this common?

First off hi everyone! This is my first post here and I come seeking advice.


I've been on a path towards "awakening" for about a year now. The last year (up until now) has been the happiest year of my life.

Up until a few weeks ago I walked around in a state of great happiness all the time, I felt I was in control of my thoughts, my emotions, everything. I felt like I was an awakened being.


This all came crashing down when I began to practice Raja Yoga, and to focus in on true self, which, after a few weeks of bliss, led to an identity crisis, and then my fixing that crisis... but then this all led me to realized how much my ego had been influencing me. I had never realized how ego-centric my spiritual practices were... A lot of it was genuine but it was always slightly influenced by egoic drives. "I want to be an enlightened person", and I had this image of me being enlightened and all this stuff. I practiced a lot of occult "magick" and had these ideas of me having all these powers, clairvoyance, astral senses, etc... And I would tell myself "You don't desire anything, you don't need it" but subconsciously I did.

I still feel I learned important lessons and advanced a great deal during the last year, it has been a big milestone in my life, but I have recently discovered how little I knew.



As of late I have been coming in touch with a sense of awareness that is completely above ego, above thought, above seperation. I'll have a few hours every day where I feel in complete oneness with things, where I have no conception of "me" and "everything else". Where thought ceases to exist. Unfortunately my mind always finds a way to bring me back down from there.


What stinks is, as of late, I've been dealing with so many negative emotions I haven't had to deal with much at all in the past year. I went almost a whole year without ever feeling bad, because I was slightly "awakened" but I was just ignorant enough to not see my faults, but now that I am learning these new things, it has brought me back to where I began, feeling quite upset a lot of the time. And the negative emotions are harder to deal with because I haven't felt them in so long... I feel like i've fallen from grace, and that I had to fall from grace in order to see the truth and to see my misgivings, but the fall hurts.



Is it common to have intense negative emotions when you start to realize the real "self" which exists beyond ego, beyond seperateness,beyond any identity other than "I am"? Do you have any advice regarding this stage of my journey?

a moment is all we can expect from perfection. don't give up, i feel very similar to what you are saying. i feel like my ego starts to fade away and I lose my attachment to the physical world, but then I get too obsessed with wanting and desiring to not want and not desire things, lol.

accept even your darkness, even your negative thoughts, for they are all a part of you. you have lifetimes to remember, and it
is natural to have developed negativity throughout your eternal existence.

[Lynn]

Hello


What at times ones fails to truly want ot look at is that "TRUE" self . We at times do not want to face those qualities or actions we have done that are in the negative realms but there is not way to move forward unless one truly does.

For the most part is is "fear" that blocks the forward progress along the life path we walk. Fear most times of SEEING or being SEEN by other's. Then EGO steps in and goes its all OK fake it. We are all a balance of light and darkness and we can all wonder into too much of one or the other. To be too high and happy so that when one hits the end of that road we find a long fall in front of us.

What is better sought is a state of balance and embracing that when an issues comes up or something we have done we do not like face it full on. Look into WHY we did or felt that way. Then embrace that as a life lesson we had. Know that its all a part of where we are now. The past is the past but that past often haunts us because we fear in clearing it.

I for the longest times was "WHY ME" coming into a home that I so felt I never belonged in coming into this life being able to do so very many things that other's at times have to really practice in, having faith and loosing faith. Hitting that bottom place of I want out of life. NOW what I understand is that while the struggles were there they existed for a reason. I was given in life what I needed in life to become whom one is today.

I would not go to say one is back to where one started as one now has more information at hand to build from. More that one might have been given insights into where one is to go forth from now.

The "awakening" is a process it can tracend the journey of our Soul over many lifetimes not just the one we maybe be in now. Look at the negative emotions and see WHY they are there and then look at what they are teaching ye as there is a reason they surface.

One can not truly accept self unless one can truly look into a mirror and say I like whom I see there without a flinch or eye movement away from full on glance. Embrace that we are going to have ups and downs if life was all ups what would on truly ever learn ?


Lynn

What's important about 'falling from grace' is continuing to remember the truth while you pick yourself up and forgive yourself for being human. Congratulations - you encountered the illusion that over-inflated ego can build and the dangers it contains. Of course it feels painful but there is learning in that, also. There's still work to be done.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself down, start all over again...

Thank you all so much for your responses.



You have helped me immensely! The only reason I have been causing myself turmoil is because I am resisting what is, instead of simply accepting it as a blessing, as an opportunity to learn and develop.

[Jyotir]

Hi TheTreesHaveEyes,

Seeing you have dispatched the issue with alacrity and thanked contributors already, yet thought this may be additionally helpful as it reinforces what others have said and also provides an introduction (assuming not familiar - if you are, apologies) to a further, perhaps valuable resource for your work.

"...so also he has no right to despond because of his personal deficiencies or the stumblings of his nature. For the Force that works in him is impersonal—or superpersonal—and infinite.

The full recognition of this inner Guide, Master of the Yoga, lord, light, enjoyer and goal of all sacrifice and effort, is of the utmost importance in the path of integral perfection. It is immaterial whether he is first seen as an impersonal Wisdom, Love and Power behind all things, as an Absolute manifesting in the relative and attracting it, as one’s highest Self and the highest Self of all, as a Divine Person within us and in the world, in one of his—or her—numerous forms and names or as the ideal which the mind conceives. In the end we perceive that he is all and more than all these things together. The mind’s door of entry to the conception of him must necessarily vary according to the past evolution and the present nature.

This inner Guide is often veiled at first by the very intensity of our personal effort and by the ego’s preoccupation with itself and its aims. As we gain in clarity and the turmoil of egoistic effort gives place to a calmer self-knowledge, we recognise the source of the growing light within us. We recognise it retrospectively as we realise how all our obscure and conflicting movements have been determined towards an end that we only now begin to perceive, how even before our entrance into the path of the Yoga the evolution of our life has been designedly led towards its turning-point. For now we begin to understand the sense of our struggles and efforts, successes and failures. At last we are able to seize the meaning of our ordeals and sufferings and can appreciate the help that was given us by all that hurt and resisted and the utility of our very falls and stumblings."

from Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga; Part I, The Yoga of Divine Works pg. 62

The book is downloadable free of charge at the below site in PDF format. There is a very good section on Raja Yoga, but imo for any seeker, the entire book is well worth reading.

After linking scroll down and click on Volume 23-24, The Synthesis of Yoga

http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/as...o/writings.php

~ J

[athribiristan]

Originally Posted by TheTreesHaveEyes

First off hi everyone! This is my first post here and I come seeking advice.


I've been on a path towards "awakening" for about a year now. The last year (up until now) has been the happiest year of my life.

Up until a few weeks ago I walked around in a state of great happiness all the time, I felt I was in control of my thoughts, my emotions, everything. I felt like I was an awakened being.


This all came crashing down when I began to practice Raja Yoga, and to focus in on true self, which, after a few weeks of bliss, led to an identity crisis, and then my fixing that crisis... but then this all led me to realized how much my ego had been influencing me. I had never realized how ego-centric my spiritual practices were... A lot of it was genuine but it was always slightly influenced by egoic drives. "I want to be an enlightened person", and I had this image of me being enlightened and all this stuff. I practiced a lot of occult "magick" and had these ideas of me having all these powers, clairvoyance, astral senses, etc... And I would tell myself "You don't desire anything, you don't need it" but subconsciously I did.

I still feel I learned important lessons and advanced a great deal during the last year, it has been a big milestone in my life, but I have recently discovered how little I knew.

This has happened to me many times throughout my spiritual journey. Just when I think I am starting to figure it out I find a whole new level of awareness and I find myself 'starting over' again with all the self-doubt and such. Its just part of the process. I think mostly it does come from ego. We want to think we know the answers and when we find out we don't, it can be a bit crushing.

As of late I have been coming in touch with a sense of awareness that is completely above ego, above thought, above seperation. I'll have a few hours every day where I feel in complete oneness with things, where I have no conception of "me" and "everything else". Where thought ceases to exist. Unfortunately my mind always finds a way to bring me back down from there.


What stinks is, as of late, I've been dealing with so many negative emotions I haven't had to deal with much at all in the past year. I went almost a whole year without ever feeling bad, because I was slightly "awakened" but I was just ignorant enough to not see my faults, but now that I am learning these new things, it has brought me back to where I began, feeling quite upset a lot of the time. And the negative emotions are harder to deal with because I haven't felt them in so long... I feel like i've fallen from grace, and that I had to fall from grace in order to see the truth and to see my misgivings, but the fall hurts.



Is it common to have intense negative emotions when you start to realize the real "self" which exists beyond ego, beyond seperateness,beyond any identity other than "I am"? Do you have any advice regarding this stage of my journey?

Yes and no. The ego has a strong will and a need to exist. When you take steps in your life to separate from ego, it rebels and and tries to assert itself. This creates conflict between ego and spirit, which is what you are experiencing right now. My advice....just keep putting one foot in front of the other, study, meditate. Mabye find yourself a teacher.

I would say this in closing. Nothing you describe sounds unusual. Spiritual people have problems just like anyone else.

Thank you both for your advice and sentiments.

It is comforting to know that I am not alone.


That excerpt was very interesting and I am going to download that pdf and read it for sure... Any writing regarding yoga and the higher self fascinates me.

[psychoslice]

To be truly Enlightened has nothing to do with having powers, such as clairvoyance, astral senses, etc.., you are already all that there IS, its your true nature to be Enlightened, its simply getting back to remembering who you truly are, when you Realize this you simply just go with the flow of life, excepting all that arises, its just as simple as that. If you still want to play around with stuff like clairvoyance then just do it, if not well just don't, it makes no difference.

Originally Posted by TheTreesHaveEyes

What stinks is, as of late, I've been dealing with so many negative emotions I haven't had to deal with much at all in the past year. I went almost a whole year without ever feeling bad, because I was slightly "awakened" but I was just ignorant enough to not see my faults, but now that I am learning these new things, it has brought me back to where I began, feeling quite upset a lot of the time. And the negative emotions are harder to deal with because I haven't felt them in so long... I feel like i've fallen from grace, and that I had to fall from grace in order to see the truth and to see my misgivings, but the fall hurts.

Is it common to have intense negative emotions when you start to realize the real "self" which exists beyond ego, beyond seperateness,beyond any identity other than "I am"? Do you have any advice regarding this stage of my journey?

It is common in balancing yourself.. to balance all bodies..

In our class we are merging the mental and emotional bodies.. this is the upgrade path everyone is to go through (from my understanding) to merge them.. the DENSITY of 3rd dimension must be removed/cleared/looked at..

So yes it sounds like you are doing this process..

I wish to remind you the EGO is not a bad thing.. I wish to remind that even writing these words you are USING your ego your analyzer.. I wish to remind you to love your EGO that is the balance in things.. I wish to remind you that the EGO is usually the dominant body we all use.. maybe spend 90% of our time in EGO body.. 10% in the spiritual/emotional and physical bodies..

The ego can help you with a spiritual path.. mine certainly does but it can get in the way too.. balance is the key.. always has been, always will be.

I have one piece of advice.. study abraham-hicks "Emotional Guidance System" I think that will help you understand emotions much better..

http://ezinearticles.com/?Climbing-t...cale&id=260194
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j9ZIcdRcS4