So the transition period seems to be over. I had got into a phase where I was in the I AM most of the time and I was afraid of losing it.
I now realise thanks to guidance from Ravi and William that it is also a phase of unfolding and that I dont have to hold on to it. It is the mind that wishes to hold on to it. And this feeling is coming from the Higher and nothing of my doing. Letting go will allow more flowering.
Firstly William's guidance which for me is Direct from someone who seems to have gone through a similar phase early on his journey.
You are going deep and there is a valid partial insight from your experience. The fear that the experience might go away, the desire to maintain it, and the efforting that you feel you must do to maintain it is a natural result of the realization being incomplete.
The way that I am sharing about this is that we are pure awareness, the seeing itself and not the "seer". The seer is a fiction that we imagine is behind our awareness and looking with awareness. There is "no one" behind our awareness doing the awareness. The pure awareness, the pure seeing itself is experiencing everything.
When we evolve, we tend to experience the content of awareness is more and more vividness, we are aware of awareness being aware of the content of our experience. When we do this, then the content feels brighter and more vivid. We can make the subtle mistake of thinking that the vividness of the content is the enlightened state, but the vividness of the content of our experience is still part of the content, part of the ever changing experiences that move through the space of awareness. In short, we are not meant to attach to the content of a "higher state" or resist the content of a "lower state" of consciousness. We are meant to rest in awareness as awareness, and then let content flow without clinging or resistance. If we try to maintain a state, then this is clinging to the state, and also resisting lesser states.
When we rest in awareness as awareness, relate to the contents of our experience without clinging, and without resistance, just watching with no watcher (the watcher is like a series of commentary mental thoughts interpreting our experience and referencing it to an "I" or self), then our experience is not filtered by thought. It will get brighter and more vivid, and we will rightly interpret that we are in "higher state". But the secret is not to rest in a higher state or try to escape a lower state, but to rest in awareness as awareness, and let the transitory states be transitory.
I remember when I let go of trying to maintain a higher state, then it did pass away and an even higher state emerged to take its place, and then an even higher state emerged to take its place. It is like I no longer put any pressure on my experience to be anything special and this profound relaxation allowed my experience to spontaneously unfold and continue to grow.
You want to let even depression arise, abide, change, and pass away. But depression is only depressing if we identify with it and assuming that it somehow defines us. But depression is really just arising within the field of awareness and has no self. If we watch awareness without identifying with it, then we will neither cling to it or resist it.
In practice, there is usually some subtle identification with depression, and the noticing of this identification frees us from it. But rather than trying to not-identify, simply see it has no self. It is an object of awareness, and like a mirror the content is in constant change within the mirror. Another way of understanding this is to "be aware, be aware, be aware". Notice your experience and stay in the noticing, and then breathe, breathe, breathe. The conscious breathing will prevent getting stuck in subtle thoughts that tend to structure our experience into seer-seeing-seen and this sets up a subtle struggle.
It is like, in the beginning, we notice obvious struggle, obvious clinging, obvious resistance, and do not realize that in our subconscious mind that are subtle currents of inner activity that is constantly clinging, resisting, and identifying, and only a small part of has awakened from this. That small part is afraid of losing its foothold in Presence. But Presence is just pure awareness...it is the earth element or grounding quality of pure awareness, so rather than make a subtle mental effort, what is better to do is to remember that our identity is pure awareness and just in this.
What will happen is that the subconscious mind will empty itself of "I" thoughts, it will unburden itself within the awareness field that has ceased to identify, resist, or clinging. The emptying process will happen until our bodies start turning into light, or have light surges happen to it. These are the effects of the awakening process (siddhis, signs of accomplishment), and the signs are both validating but not to be attached to.
We will be tempted to re-identify, re-resist, and re-cling to the arising content. The reason why is because this is how the content of the subconscious mind got formed in the first place, by our gestures of clinging, resistance, and identification. If we notice this subtle form of clinging, resistance, and identification as part of the content, and just breathe, then these reflexes will relax, and our abiding in pure awareness as pure awareness will move deeper into itself. It is a beautiful movement and it can continue indefinitely. It is like falling deeper and deeper until you realize that there is no bottom that you will eventually land upon and with this realization, then the feeling of falling becomes the feeling of floating.
There is more that I could share about this. Please feel free to keep on asking any questions until you are completely clear. When I was passing through the stage that you seem to be on, there was almost no one who was able to meet me where I was. Krishnamurti helped the most, and also my current spiritual teacher Sohra.
This is Raviji's guidance
There is no need for you to feel lost or abandoned by the subtler energies and forces. As you quoted Rumi, what you seek is also seeking you. As Madame de Salzmann often told us that higher energy is there and wishing to descend to us, but that we are not ready to receive.
Awareness—other words more or less coincide with this word in meaning and practice, namely consciousness, attention, spirit—is subtler in substance (materiality) and power than the mind and the senses and can therefore affect them. Any moment of awareness changes our body at a cellular level. In general, the change is mitigated or undone or even reversed by anxiety, fear or fantasy. Returning again and again to being aware is a wholly worthwhile undertaking.
Any effort (practice, abhyasa) arises from the ego. But there is no need to be afraid of the ego or to be against it. Always keep in mind what Madame de S. said, “Ego is a good servant, but a bad master.” This is why along with effort, a letting go, a submission, a state of non-action (naishkarmya) and unknowing (naishjñānya), is also needed. Along with abhyāsa for which ego is needed we need vairāgya, freedom from the self. Both Arjuna the skillful warrior with much pride and confidence engaged in battle and Krishna the witness above the battle are needed.
We cannot control the subtle combination of our effort and letting go of my effort so that Krishna could play his part. Therefore, as with every serious searcher, one step forward and two to the side, or one step forward and one back; and sometimes only one step back and two forward.
The great sage Shvetashvatara, in the Upanishad named after his name, made this very helpful remark: “All human realization is a combination of tapas prabhāva (effect of effort) and deva prasāda (benediction of the devas).”
H or Ravi needs to make his effort, and to allow Krishna or Christ or Buddha or Vishnu to make their effort. Not easy, but an adventure and a joy. If I really begin to relish the journey, it becomes easier to let go of the inevitable attachment to the destination which of necessity is mostly imagined. Further, any serious effort is assisted by an occasional meeting with fellow searchers, especially someone also on the journey.
And so the journey continues...
