Although the search has got to come to an end sometime, learning does not stop. The spiritual lessons gained from another's experience builds faith, motivates and keeps us going and does teach us to show caution, and tread carefully. Although we cannot expect the same experiences nor the results, the lessons learned will add to our knowledge of the subject at hand giving insights to the mysterious.
Rajiv Agarwal writes about his venture and journey to become enlightened at https://innerspiritualawakening.com/rajiv-agarwal/my-journey/ Here we can pick up numerous lessons.
Having explored the healing therapies of different traditions he became adept at it bringing people to see him as a guru who had some kind of spiritual powers. Fearing that he would lose sight of his aim in attaining enlightenment, he decided to refrain from healing others, "I didn’t want to be distracted from my lofty goal, and I slowly distanced myself from my image as a healer."
Moving deeper into his goal of attaining enlightenment, he began to have spiritual experiences.
It was during this time I started having fantastic spiritual experiences. Sometimes I felt so ecstatic that every cell in my body would explode with bliss. I felt that I was floating in an infinite ocean of ecstasy. I was absorbed in these expanded rapturous states of being for hours. A sense of immense sacredness and divinity infused my entire consciousness.
During these states, my body sometimes used to go in spontaneous states of yoga. Sometimes my body would become so flexible that I could bend spontaneously into difficult yoga postures. Many of these postures were completely unknown to me but the body automatically aligned itself to certain ancient forms.
Another curious thing happened with my breathing; I experienced spontaneous Pranayama and kumbhka (Ancient yogic breathing patterns and techniques). It is a cessation of breath, which leads to higher states of consciousness. I experienced both the outer and the inner cessation of breath. After I took a deep breath in, my breath used to stop for around a minute to minute and a half. During this time the mind felt utterly still and pure. After the inner cession, I would exhale, wherein my breath used to again stop for approximately a minute.
One day in a small town in the Himalayas, he begins to witness his consciousness when his consciousness shifts to envelop all there was.
As I looked within, I could feel my consciousness slowly expanding beyond my body. To my utter amazement, my consciousness expanded and slowly embraced the lake and the mountain ranges. As I looked at the clouds, I could see them become one with me. I was suddenly everywhere. The entire space was myself and everything under the sky was me. Every point of space contained me, reflected my consciousness, which was mine, but was also universal. The entire creation melted into a luminous wave of consciousness. I was free from the bondage of individuality, from being a mere speck. I was the totality, but it was not me as a person. There was identity, but it was universal, all embracing. It was at this moment that the teachings of Nisargadatta, J Krishnamurthi, Advaita, Zen and Buddhism all unfolded and I realized what they were trying to point at. For years I had read them, contemplated their teachings, but now, at this moment, I was living them.
He says, "The spiritual awakening experience caused a permanent shift in my understanding. More than ever before, I wanted enlightenment. Enlightenment. This one word brought untold grief and suffering to me for the next few years." Wanting to make it his permanent state of being, he sought many masters but to no avail. They could not help him.
I wasted years pleasing Gurus, hoping they would somehow help me in integrating and making this state permanent, that their grace would bestow enlightenment, the ultimate cessation of being. I knew if I witnessed my consciousness a little longer, meditated a little more, I would finally go beyond the veil of illusion and find my own true self. The more I chased enlightenment, the more miserable I became.
He thrived on thinking, "Till you reached perfection, everything else was an illusion. Either you were Enlightened and perfect, or you were still in duality, in illusion. It was a black and white situation, either you attained it, or you were imperfect." His world slowly fell apart.
Then it struck me. I was looking for a perfect enlightened state in the future, a state which someone else had experienced. I had been caught in endless becoming, the desire to find a perfect state of being which I had read in books. And I had totally forgotten about what I had – the infinite bliss and peace which I had always experienced, the state of beyond mind and consciousness, the state of pure awareness.
At that moment, an intense joy overwhelmed me, shaking the very core of my being. The vast treasure of awakening had always been with me but my spiritual greed of becoming more, of wanting it to be permanent had made me blind to it. It was like having billions of dollars, and still being miserable because you are not as rich as Bill Gates. That day, I stopped becoming. I stopped seeking. I stopped being a miserable seeker. I had finally arrived.
Having drawn the curtain that was veiling him aside, he was truly awakened to the reality that day. He shares his moments after the awakening.
It took some years for this final shift to be totally integrated. Life has become immensely beautiful living in present conscious awareness. Stillness has become the background for all activities. Spontaneous states of bliss and ecstasy arise, carrying me to the infinite shore of immense joy. There is a sacred wonderment when beholding nature and life in all its diversity. There is a shining darkness, an unfathomable silence, space which is empty, yet full. I call it what is, the sense of presence.
And I would like everyone to experience these amazing higher states of consciousness at least once in their life time. Even the sun pales in front of the immensity of consciousness.
We are again reminded of Ramalinga Adigal's verses from his Arutpa that very well ask us to let go after placing the initial effort. Let us let the divine work its way through us in its own good time without pressing it to do its work. We will not worry no more, neither will we attempt to slog or work towards it no further. We shall withdraw within and wait for his grace to work its beauty in us.
இனித்துயர் படமாட்டேன் விட்டே னே
என்குரு மேல்ஆணை இட்டே னே.
இனிப்பாடு படமாட்டேன் விட்டே னே
என்னப்பன் மேல்ஆணை இட்டே னே.