Waking Up, Enlightenment, Satori, Nirvana…all names for the ultimate experience of breaking free from the illusion of a separate self and knowing our selves as “One with All That Is.’ Whether we call that God/Goddess, Consciousness, or Universal Oneness, many spiritual traditions have a description of the process of “waking up” and the end result. For the most part, though, the descriptions of “waking up” entail transcending the limitations of the body, mind and ego…our seeming human limitations.
As an 18 year old growing up in Berkeley, I was more than familiar with transcending the body and my human limitations…usually through the use of controlled substances! When my 12th grade English teacher told our class that by using Transcendental Meditation she didn’t require Novocain during dental work, my attention was piqued. After being initiated in “TM” the following year, I found that within a few minutes, I could easily transcend the experience of bodily awareness…and all without drugs!
Eventually, as I continued my study of Eastern religions, I started to feel a fundamental split or schism embodied in the oft-repeated mantra “I have a body, but I’m not my body.” Whether it was the message that one should transcend the “lower” chakras and hang out in the “higher” centers of consciousness or admonitions that sex and spirituality didn’t really belong together, the message was clear…if you want to be spiritual you have to transcend the messy aspects of the body: desire, sex, mind & emotions.
This split between Spirit and Matter was not new news, however….just ask Eve! The Fall from Grace of Adam and Eve represents the beginning of this fundamental split. At the core of the split is the question of how do we live as spiritual beings having an individual, and seemingly separate, limited human experience?
Fortunately, throughout the world, there has always been another worldview that sees Spirit as immanent or coexisting with the material world. Although shunned and repressed by Orthodox religions as blasphemy, this immanent view of Spirit interpenetrating Matter can be found in indigenous, shamanic and pagan cultures on every continent.
The immanent worldview then, is what we could describe as “waking down” vs “waking up.” In waking down we see the beauty and sacredness in all of our human experiences. Instead of repressing our human limitations to conform to a transcendent ideal, we embrace our humanness as a vital aspect of our divinity. Carl Jung once said, “whatever we resist, persists.” If we resist or repress our humanity…our perceived human limitations, we also resist the immanent aspect of the Divine that can touch, interpenetrate and transform our lives.
In this case resistance is futile as it inevitably leads to suffering and the perception of separation and limitation. It is indeed a paradox that only by truly embracing our humanity…our human limitations, can we actually transcend them. In this case transcendence happens through total acceptance of who we are, not through repression of that which does not conform with a “spiritual” ideal.
One might say that waking down is the “new” waking up and it’s available to anyone, regardless of religious affiliation or spiritual belief, who is willing to embrace their humanness with acceptance and love.
Copyright 2011 – James Jarvis, M.A.
