How Awakening Progresses

An example of how I use this, is when I am doing shamanic journeying with people.

Going through the different aspects of experience gives a full picture of what is present for that person and allows us to access deep and profound meditative states together.

• How does your body feel?
• How would you describe your heart? What emotions are present?
• How does your mind feel? Can we create more space for what is here?
• What wants to be expressed?

A big awakening or shift will go through all these different stages, too:

Body: We need to go through a physical change to create space in our beings, this could include a physical process like crying, moving the body, relaxing or allowing energy to move through us

Heart: We need to trust our emotions and felt senses without getting fixed ideas about what it means, so that we can connect with what is present in the moment

Mind: We need to build an understanding of what is happening in experience, integrate insights into our world view and apply language or a working model to it.

NB: Lots of people stop here and get stuck. This mental understanding is a process, not an end-point. We want to focus on creating clarity and spaciousness, rather than concreting insights in in a fixed and permanent way. If you tend to get stuck here, journalling is a really good way to keep mental understanding flowing in a productive way.

Soul: We want to integrate this into how we flow with life. What does this experience mean to you personally? How would you describe what this means in your own words? What do you believe it says about you, the world and others? How can you use it as an expression of your being?

Awakening & Integration

It is only once an awakening has filtered through all the layers of our being that it becomes fully integrated. Often it has to go through several iterations of each layer before it is somewhat complete or stable.

Here is an example of how an awakening might happen in the different layers.

Body: Feeling a big energy explosion in your root chakra

Heart: Feeling that this energy is connecting you to something bigger than you

Mind: Meditating on the subtle details of the sensations and making space for it to be present without us attaching to it

Soul: Connecting with a sense of aliveness or sexuality that it has opened for you, investigating any shadows or difficult emotions it brings up and allowing them to express themselves

The Model

The awakening process happens on different levels, in different parts, in different intensities and over different time-scales.

The different intensities and time-scales overlap and intersect and we could be in several different places at once, depending on where we are focusing.

For example, you could be going through something very heart-opening and emotionally intense in wider life, navigating a big awakening that you are very much in the body phase of and needing to work mainly on the mind section while in a specific practice session.

These are all interrelated – you can’t separate them out and all the parts impact and contain each other in every moment.

The model of the concentric circles is purposefully simple and flexible, as it isn’t intended as a reflection of reality.

In my experience reality is like a continually moving, 5D psychedelic image. There isn’t a way that we can ultimately make sense of it or land on anything fixed or concrete.

With this in mind, the model that I have created could easily go the other way around, with body being in the centre and soul being on the outside. Or be presented as a flow diagram that progresses from one to the next.

Rather than getting fixated on what the metaphysical truth is, you can use a model to allow you to feel into different areas of your experience with more clarity and sensitivity. It is an expression of the mind – it is not something concrete or final but a tool for deepening our understanding of the world and ourselves.

It is worth recognising that the way you present the model will affect how you practice and experience life.

All my practices are built on a sense of compassionate presence, with the purpose of building a healthy, empowered expression of our beings in the world that is connected to the mystery of life while also being grounded in shared reality. This is reflected in my approach of putting the body first and keeping things simple.

If you put the mind first, for example, you are more likely to create a much more detailed, complex and reified model that will affect how you understand practice and experience.

It is worth experimenting with the different ways of understanding these aspects of experience and noticing what works best for you.

Outcomes

The outcome of a positive awakening might look something like this.

Body: more jhanic energy present

Heart: more connected to contentment

Mind: understanding the conditions that help create this state and the limitations of it

Soul: embracing our personal expression of this state to support a deepening of practice and life

It may be that the process unfolds in a different order for us. But my experience is that it needs to go through all the stages or it won’t stick around.

For example, we can realise insights in our mind but if we’re not willing to open to feeling the emotional impact of them in the body we will just cycle through them again and again.

Or by bypassing the heart we will create world-views that oppress huge parts of experience.

Or if we feel things in our emotions but aren’t willing or able to be open-minded about the truth of a situation we will get trapped in the naive emotional story of it, or feel depressed and ashamed of ourselves.

It requires for all the parts to be aligned and included for the insight and change to be realised. This can take a bit of time to process.

When we consciously allow and incorporate all aspects of our being in this way, awakening can happen incredibly quickly.

Shared Practice

This process of opening to new parts can be incredibly challenging and destabilising.

But when we practice together in a safe and connected way, with people who have already opened these parts of themselves, this process is inherently much easier.

When we set up shared practice in the right way we are lending each other the capacity to open to these new parts of ourselves:

• in our energy bodies
• through our physical presence
• in our hearts and the connection we feel there
• through the open acceptance and non-judgement in our minds
• and the ineffable connection and sense of meaning that ties us all together in our soul

When I am working and journeying with people, they regularly report various expressions of connections that go far beyond what our current scientific understanding of the world could make sense of.

I hope at some point this will be proven to reveal a more interconnected side of reality that I believe will be more nourishing and meaningful for people to feel part of.

For now, if this feels a bit woo for you then I’m sure we can all agree that sharing difficult experiences with people who we trust and feel safe with can be life-changing, even if only in small ways.

Ultimately the way we set practice up and the ways we practice together is one of the biggest things that will impact our capacity to awaken parts of us and deepen our experience. As much as anything else in practice we need to be cultivating healthy, meaningful and supportive practice spaces.