**Originally posted in the Awakening and Nonduality Facebook-group.
Stumbling upon Baba Kim Katami’s forum post regarding guided awakening on yogaforums.com completely changed my life. Or, at least, completely changed my perspective on life. Now this is a pretty bold statement, so what do I mean by it? Is all love and light? Constant bliss? Well, in short: no! So what exactly has changed? Why should someone go through the hazzle of analysing the story we call I? I am tempted to avoid the whole thing through a quote by Bill Hamilton responding to a question regarding enlightenment: “Highly recommended. Can’t tell you why.” But that’s not very nice, is it?
So whats the big deal? Well, first of all, after I awakened there has been with me a constant sense of peace, of silence, of emptiness. Every single one of you know this peace, but somehow it gets covered most of the time. What seems to be covering it is the illusory sense of self. After going through the guidance with Baba, there is no question that this peace is my true nature.
To say that there is constant peace, however, might give the impression that all is love and light these days, but no. Just no. What I am trying to say is that the peace, which was completely covered most of the time before, is now known to me. It still gets momentarily covered by praticularily heavy emotional states etc., but still I know it.
This uncovering of silence seems to have an effect on the way I percieve the different phenomena I encounter through the senses. Contrasted with silence, these phenomena are percieved stronger, with more freshness, more crispness. Sounds are so close! Light is so beautful! The snow so fresh! The coldness on my face when I am outside, the roar of the engine as I am driving, the faces of the people I encounter. Contrasted with silence it is all so damn beautiful!
When it comes to how I operate differently in everyday life after awakening, the most obvious thing is that it takes a lot more to upset me. Where before I most certainly would become offended by a comment, a statement etc., there is now less reaction. I scoff it off, not forced, not as an afterthought, just naturally, immeadeatly. Like water on a duck’s back. Even when I do get upset, when I have slept badly, or I am just in a bad mood and that one comment just releases a chain of angry, irritated thoughts, it does not have the same force as before. I see through the play, so to speak.
There is one important thing I want to mention and that is that all this was not obvious to me right after awakening. Well, the silence was obvious, but even so I did doubt, as I have understood that many people do, if ?this was really it.? Well, what I can say is that about a month later, there is no doubt left. This is really it! Unquestionably, there is a lot of work sitll to be done, cleansing the subconscious mind of the reaction patterns that form the basis of behavioral patterns, but there is no doubt in my mind that this is it.
If you have not yet, I highly recommend you to contact Baba Kim in order to go through guidance. In the weeks prior to my own guiding, I set out to follow the two-part analysis on my own. Needeless to say, without the invaluable skills of Baba, without the clear instructions, the direct pointing based on intuiton as well as experience, I quickly became confused and layed down the efforts. Guidance by an enlightened teacher is key.
May all beings awake!
Love,
Karl Henrik