Transcendence

By Armine Asryan (Nane Sevunts)

Julie in transcendental reality

Life seemed to bring nourishment that she had never felt before. The “I” or the “me” part of Julie was growing, and she could feel her heart singing a song that she loved. Even with this progress in her mental state, she still had ups and downs. She could feel life touching her soul with a gentle hand. Other times, she felt darkness surrounding her.

The following are excerpts from Julie’s diary.

“I am now in the Syunik region of Armenia – in my mountainous region covered with breathtaking forests. I love the area. I can feel the freshness of air and the pride flowing from the mountains. I am happy I was born and live here.

Today was a kind of relaxed day, but I had the depressing feeling of missing something. There was an emptiness that I couldn’t fill with anything else. So I took my backpack and went to the mountains. Recently, I have been doing this daily, but today was special, as I climbed really high and got into a cage. I was tired and slept there.

In this diary I have jotted down literally everything I saw in my cage dream. I know I will read this many, many times: The dream was so real and so pertinent to my current state that I won’t be able to forget it.

The dream

I was walking through mountains. The scene was fabulous and I felt I was going through a divine place that no man’s feet ever touched. Suddenly I appeared in a castle. There were many doors in a large lobby where I was standing. Each door had a sign. I looked around and opened the first door.

Apathy

When I entered the room, I saw myself sitting in the corner. My second self was depressed and hardly looked at me.

Who are you?

“You,” I heard.

What are you doing here?

“You left me here long ago,” came the answer.

What was it like being me?

“I felt out of place. I felt there is no end to a film that had my own name as the title. It was a long road.”

“How do you feel now?

“I feel the same but I don’t visit you often anymore. You do not need me, so I decided to live in this room and find other hosts.”

Can I kiss you now?

I hugged her and went out of the room.

I woke up from my dream. The dream was a sign for me to talk to all the emotions that I had experienced since being sick. So, from now on, I will knock on the doors of my emotional states and talk to myself. That is my decision.

 

My diary

Fear

I: Why do you feel anxiety when something happens that does not meet your expectations?

Myself: I don’t know, it’s just happening. I feel anxious energy rising inside me and my whole body trembles.

I: Can you feel that?

Myself: I want to avoid it. I don’t want to feel that.

I: Can you accept it?

Myself: Accept what? Fear? Why?

I: Because only then can you get rid of it. Accept the fear the way it is, and it will leave you.

Myself: Easier said than done.

I: Pause a moment. Feel the energy rising inside you. Do not push it. Do not hold it back. Just let the energy flow.

Myself: Can I do that?

I: Try it.

 

Emptiness

I: Yesterday I tried to feel the anxiety that was inside me. I paused a moment and didn’t do anything. The anxiety was there. I didn’t push it. On the contrary, I welcomed it. After a moment or two, I felt all my nerves relaxing. It worked.

Myself: Now do the same with the other feelings?

I: What do you feel right now?

Myself: I feel there is something missing. There is not enough of something very important.

I: Now pause. Accept that feeling of emptiness. Can you feel it?

Myself: My whole body is resisting.

I: Accept the resistance. I know so much is going on in your body now. You feel emptiness; you feel your desires are not satisfied; you feel you want to take some action right now. You are impulsive.  There is one answer to this entire storm – acceptance. Whatever is rising inside you should be met with open arms. Resistance, emptiness, unsatisfied desires. But please don’t do it all together. Take your feelings one by one and accept them.

Myself: What do you mean by accept them? I don’t really understand.

I: The first step to acceptance is awareness. Be aware of your feelings and let them happen. Acceptance will come naturally as you watch your feelings rise. Just try it every time a negative emotion is rising inside you. You will be amazed how relaxed you feel.

 

Jealousy/Pride

I: I don’t feel equal. I feel either inferior or superior. Both come with negative implications. I have heard many times that I shouldn’t compare, that each person is unique, but jealousy rises in me involuntarily. I see myself as inferior or superior. It’s absolutely impossible not to compare. We have been told to compare and compete since we were children.  How can I not do it?

Myself: You are right on one point. Everybody is unique. There is not a second person like Julie with her name, nationality, hair color, history, character and inclinations. Accept your uniqueness. Just pause and feel that wonder of uniqueness. It is beautiful. Pause and concentrate your attention on the wonderful feeling of being unique with whatever you have inside or outside. Have you ever seen an ugly tree? My guess is – never. But trees are different in shape, color and height. Can you feel how accepting the tree is? It just IS. The tree IS. It does not add any more judgements to its Isness. It just exists.

I: Be like a tree.

Myself: I look at myself from a different perspective. I think what I AM is, in fact, beautiful. Why? Because there is no single repetition. I feel that. It’s calming. It’s pleasing. It’s natural. There’s so much inside it.

 

Approval

I: Do you feel you should be approved by someone to feel your worth?

Myself: I don’t think so.

I: So why do you feel bad when someone disapproves of you?

Myself: How’s that?

I: You feel inferior. You feel discriminated against. You feel you are being treated unjustly. You even feel anger and hatred. Is that you?

Myself: Yes, sometimes.

I: Imagine a blue balloon. And imagine someone saying that the balloon is not blue but orange or dark green. Does it change the color of the balloon? Doesn’t the balloon stay the same blue balloon even when someone gives it different labels?

Myself: I think so.

I: So why are you concerned when someone says you are not right? Does it change who Julie is? Do you change inside? If you go deeper, you will feel a space that is always the same. That Julie never changes even if she is disapproved of. Can you feel that space?

Myself: I don’t know. I think I am quite vulnerable.

I: That is because you never met the true Julie. The true Julie is unchangeable. The true Julie stays the same even under an attack with thousands of judgements and labels. Now concentrate on yourself. Are you that one who is hurt by disapproval or are you the one who is aware of that space?

Myself: I don’t think I feel that.

I: Concentrate on your deeper self. There is something which allows things to happen in the outer world. Be aware of that SOMETHING. Do you feel that? Do you recognize that space?

Myself: I can feel something inside me which is calmer than I normally am.

I: You go to that point. There is no anxiety in that awareness. There is calmness and peace. Feel that. Enjoy it. And now, tell me, do you think that part of you can be changed by anyone or anything? Don’t you think it is always there? Always patient. Always calm.

Myself: I can sense a feeling which is close to pleasure. How come?

I: Every day, several times a day, concentrate your attention on being aware of that place. That is the true Julie, and that Julie is not separated from the world. That awareness is ONE. But let us leave such a conversation for another time.

Hatred

I: Have you ever felt that powerful energy called hatred?

Myself: I don’t know if it’s hatred or not, but sometimes I wish I could kill someone. I feel they are absolutely unfair and that I deserve better.

I: What do you do then?

Myself: Before, I was trembling with my whole body. I was making up stories in my head about how I could get revenge on that person. Now, it’s different. I stop for a moment and picture that person in my head. “Can I accept this person the way they are?” I ask myself. And if the answer is “no,” I delve deeper into the sensation. Why is it that I have this energy? Do I want fairness? Do I want kindness? What do I want? If it is the evil that I resist so much, I try to accept evil as part of the universe. Whether we want it or not, we have both negative and positive energies on this planet earth. And if we want to continue in peace, we need to accept both. So I stop for a moment and ask myself, “Can I accept evil as part of the universe? Can I let it go?” The last question is magical as you just let go of that energy. You may be amazed, but sometimes this simple question does wonders. I just let go of the energy and feel free.

I: Does it always work?

Myself: Sometimes the same question comes back again and again. It means I did not fully let go of the negative energy. I really want to accept life in its diversity, and evil is part of the diversity. If I sense the feeling returning to me, it means I have to work on it more. Eventually, very few things will bother you. For example, the other day the shopkeeper was mean to me. I was pleasantly surprised that it did not bother me. It was pleasing, but it was also funny, because the shopkeeper lost her power over me. I felt that. I felt out of control. That is a very pleasing thing to realize. You are not affected by the good or bad. You are what you are, and that’s the end of the story. Isn’t that cool?

 

Ego

Myself: What is ego?

I: Ego is your whole self with all your emotions, ideas, inclinations and whatever is part of “me.”

Myself: Is it possible to be egoless?

I: Yes, it is, but very few people accomplish that.

Myself: I don’t want to be egoless. I want my “me” part. I want to feel that “I am.”

I: It depends on what you understand under “I am.” If you understand it to be the whole story in your head that runs on and on, and you want to continue telling that story to yourself as if it is real, then you need to keep your ego. Do you really want that?

Myself: I don’t think so. The stories in my head are not true stories. They are made up by me in order to satisfy some needs that I have on an emotional level. As such, they are deprived of the true sense of reality. They are not “real.” They are “imaginary.” I understand this, but I also don’t know what “real” is. That’s why I am shifting from the imaginary world to the real world, and I don’t know what I belong to.

I: The trick is super simple. Leave aside all these ideas, emotions, sensations, wants, likes and dislikes and focus on the space where they happen. Can you do that? Try it. There is a deeper background where all of these sensations reveal themselves. Focus on that. Can you do it?

Myself: I will try. I can feel something like a mother. Something that engages in caring. Something that protects.

I: Do you feel protected?

Myself: Yes, I feel safe.

I: That is called awareness. Your true self is awareness. This is a space where all the happenings of life unfold. You are not the scenarios. You are the space where the scenarios play out. Can you feel that?

Myself: It’s so close to me. It’s so familiar. It seems I have known it all my life.

I: It was with you all your life. It’s always accepting. Always there. It’s accepting even your non-acceptance. It’s patient. It will wait for you in this and other lives until you get to it. It will never rush you, waiting until you come to the realization of your true self. You are the space. You are the awareness. Enjoy that. That’s so pleasing for the heart. There is no fight in the space – only acceptance. There is no resistance. No fight. No contradictions. The energy flows like a river to one end.

Myself: I feel that. I think I feel that one moment, and then the next I lose it.

I: At the beginning you will lose the feeling from time to time. Focus on that every time something bothers you or you recall it. In time, it will become your second nature and you will live in awareness. In awareness there is no ego.

 

Pain

Myself: My best teacher and the worst suffering!

I: Exactly! There is no learning without pain. Actually, you can learn without pain, but you should have gone down a painful path in the past. After you come to realize some of the basics, it becomes easier, and there is no need for pain that you cannot endure.

Myself: Yep, I have been there. Pain is my companion. I know it.

I: I am aware that sometimes it was so hard that your brain couldn’t accept it. I know that. But eventually you came to a space where you no longer said: “I have pain, God.” You looked at the pain and said: “I have God, pain!” Now you are there. When you look back from this vantage point, what do you feel?

Myself: I feel no regret. I feel that’s exactly what I needed. I needed the very same parents, the same country, the same siblings, the same experience. If I were to be born again, I would live exactly the same life.

I: So, on this note, let me tell you a story. A story of a girl who had no choice but to make it.

Myself: She lived in a distant country some people even don’t know exists. She lived in the mountains and could breathe the fresh mountain air every day. Her body could feel the early morning rays, and she could look at the same and say “good morning,” because the morning was good.

But it was not always like that. There were times when she would crawl from her bed after sleepless nights and regret that a new day started. There were days when the world – the enemy world – would tease her innocence and give gifts that she did not ask for. There were days when the only thing she wished for was death.

 

So, how did it change? What happened?

 

The secret was crucifixion. She went down the path of crucifixion. Everything welling up inside her, from beliefs to sensations, was crucified. She was executed by her own people – alive. Could she die? I guess not, lol. Her angels were always with her even when she felt no assistance whatsoever.

 

And I am telling a story that lasted twenty long years. Twenty long years of crucifixion ended in a space of relative freedom where she could breathe the mountain air again and say “good morning” to the sun, because the morning was, in fact, “good.”

 

Julie turned the pages of her diary and found a story about one of the hallucinations. It was titled “The Planet of Pleasure,” a planet that she dreamed about when she was sick. Here is an excerpt from her notes.

 

The Planet of Pleasure

Planet Earth….The 5^th millennium… Armenia… She woke up in bed and stretched her arms. A smile on her face. She didn’t care what she would be doing that day. She knew that the day was going to bring her all the wonders that she had dreamed about.

Slowly she crawled out of bed. The floor was cold, and she felt the freezing cold shoot up her body. She took a hot shower. She stood under the water for a long time. The water was flowing over her body and giving her the pleasure of warmth and security. She did not want to get out of the shower as she was enjoying the moment under the hot water, and her whole body was relaxing. Then she poured some cold water on herself and jumped quickly back to the hot shower. She repeated this 7 times. Her whole body was red and trembling with pleasure.

Julie was one of the inhabitants of planet Earth in the 5^th millennium. It was a world where dreams were coming true immediately. It was a world of security, pleasure, self-satisfaction and delight. The inhabitants of this planet possessed the amazing skill of being able to make their own world by virtue of thought. Everybody created their own world with the power of their mind. Thoughts could materialize.

This was a planet of freedom and security. Everybody knew that they could not encroach on the world of others, as this would mean disturbing their own privacy and pleasure. The inhabitants of this world did not interfere in each other’s worlds, not because they were kind. Kindness was not a virtue in this world. They were egoistic. They knew that if they interfered in another’s world, they would ruin their own privacy. They did not interfere because they were egoistic. They did not want to lose the security and beauty of their own world.

Julie closed her diary and went to bed.