Becoming Divinely Human
by CC Leigh

Chapter 9: Illuminations

Our Story: Through gazing, transmission, meditation, or Inseeing, we became receptive to—and experienced—profound spiritual openings, compassion, and great love. We chose whatever forms of inquiry or practice we found most appropriate to support different phases of our unfoldment, as we discovered that peak experiences gave us valuable new perspectives yet were not the same as stable embodied awakening.

How to talk about the divine?
In this chapter I will more directly address the topic of awakening—the manner in which you begin to know the divine and experience yourself as an integral part of that Mystery. To do so, I need to find a way to describe something that is fundamentally unspeakable, and beyond our everyday experience.
It is remarkably difficult to speak about Consciousness, because Consciousness is not a thing or a process—and most of our language is used to describe objects or processes. We don’t have many words in the English language to describe the ultimate Mystery (unlike the Sanskrit language, for instance, which has many words to describe the variety of spiritual experiences, openings, and understandings). The one English word that has been used a great deal in the past—“God”—has so many interpretations as to render it practically meaningless. For many current spiritual seekers, this word has lost its ability to stir them with wonder and awe.

But then, being human, we continue to try to find a means of talking with others about our discoveries and experiences, and about our knowing. If I were speaking with you personally, I would try to discover which words and frameworks have personal meaning for you and use them. For this writing, I will use a variety of words all pointing to the One Mystery which cannot, ultimately, be spoken. When I am referring to the universal, transcendent quality of a familiar word, I will capitalize that word to distinguish it from everyday meanings of the same word. As you read, feel free to translate my language into words that are more personally meaningful to you.

No amount of descriptive terms can convey the ultimate Mystery in a way that your rational, logical mind will understand. It’s simply beyond the mind’s scope. This is an important point. No matter how much you struggle to grasp the concept of awakening with your mind, you will fail. At some point you’re going to look back and say that it’s not what you expected! Still, we can try to create a framework with words, a framework that might serve to orient you toward something that will at some point become real for you, beyond words and concepts. If my attempt to describe the territory of awakening does nothing other than support and encourage you to hang in as your process unfolds, it will have served a useful purpose. Once you know, you know. You are changed by your discovery. New qualities become available to you, and you may find yourself communicating with others who know by a glance or a smile instead of speaking, sharing an understanding that is beyond words.
Whether or not you are aware of anything in you that transcends ordinary waking consciousness, I posit that you do have at least an intuition that you are something more. It is this very intuition that forms one side, so to speak, of the core paradox which is where your limited, finite nature intersects with your infinite, divine nature. We all have within us the potential to become fully aware of our emerging divinity. In these next chapters, I will be speaking to that part of you that can understand beyond words, that already knows this information and is even now in the process of becoming more fully known and lived by you.

Peak experiences and glimpses
A glimpse or other unexpected peak experience can bring with it a wonderful new perspective on reality, and can occur to anyone at any stage of development. Most people will get at least a taste of something more at some point in their lives. It’s not unusual to have a profound experience during childhood or adolescence, as if a veil has been lifted and something very powerful and compelling breaks through, whether for a brief moment or for a longer time. A deeper sense of the nature of existence is revealed.

For example, when I was about five, I wandered from my home and discovered a pair of sunflowers growing by the side of a driveway. As I gazed up at the golden disks, they became the radiant “faces” of two beings that showered me with the most pure, unconditional love and acceptance I had ever felt. As I tell this tale, I know it would be easy to ascribe seeing faces in sunflowers as just a child’s imagination, but there was something so real and true about the experience that it remains with me to this day, many years later. Some bridge between physical reality and the transcendent dimension was opened for me on that day. It took nearly 30 more years before I was able to consciously reopen that bridge—but that early childhood experience was enough to convince me that there was more to life than what my parents were teaching me.

We may refer to these openings as peak experiences—a period of time in which the challenges and struggles of daily life shift into the background and the beauty and perfection of the transcendent dimension shines through, permeating us with its radiance. Or you might have an experience of being more fully, vibrantly embodied than ever before. Whether flashy and “cosmic,” or a more subtle shift of perception, such experiences typically leave you knowing that all is right with the world, and with you, and with every aspect of your petty little life. You see how everything is inherently interconnected and whole. Truth perceived in this manner is self-validating, in the sense that you just know it’s more true than anything else you’ve experienced in life to date. This kind of enhanced perception shifts concepts like “all is One” or “I am God” or “love is the only reality” from mere mental abstraction into lived experience—they become true for you as never before. And, even though the experience later fades away leaving you with only a memory, something in you gets permanently changed by a direct experience of this over- arching intelligence and perfection.

The awakening process
As discussed in Chapter 1, embodied awakening typically begins with a glimpse of a more expanded or transcendent perspective, which leads in time (perhaps years later) to questioning and rotting out of previously-held frameworks. As the unfolding progresses, a period of oscillating in and out of more expansive states is followed by a permanent shift into the new stage which is a paradoxical blend of transcendent and immanent, divine and human.
In this chapter I will explore illuminations and oscillations, in Chapter 10 I’ll discuss the shift into irrevocable embodied awakening, and in Chapter 11 I’ll say more about the integration process that follows such a shift.

Cultivating glimpses
Something deep in the human heart longs to taste the holy nectar of the divine, to reconnect with its Source or essence in a way that satisfies its restless seeking, that brings a sense of wholeness, completion, or relief from existential separateness or confusion. It’s not unusual for someone to have a profound, perspective-altering experience that’s followed by a long dry spell. Still, the experience remains as an anchor, or a touchstone, that draws them into a more serious exploration at some time later in life when they begin to ponder the deeper questions of existence in hopes of regaining the kind of spaciousness, flow, clarity, or bliss they once touched, that felt right and true and full of meaning.

Such peak experiences, or revelations, always come by grace— according to divine timing rather than human desire or control. They typically come at the most unexpected moments. While mind-blowing experiences are not essential for the realization of your divinely human potential, a glimpse into a more transcendent framework can be deeply fulfilling, and it often motivates the ongoing search for a more lasting realization.

Although you cannot control the timing of such a glimpse, there are things you can do to increase the likelihood of experiencing something beyond ordinary reality. If you compare a glimpse to a breeze stirred by a divine hand, you will understand that you cannot force the breeze to come when you want it. However, you will have a greater chance of feeling it, as it were, if you are standing beside an open window.

Cultivation opens the window and places you beside it. There are lots of practices designed to cultivate spiritual experiences or insights, including: sitting quietly in contemplation; walking or sitting receptively in nature’s beauty; prayer and invocations; ritual; devotional singing; shamanic journeying; expressions of appreciation and gratitude; reading or listening to inspiring pieces; contemplating “who am I” or other koans; attending sittings or satsangs (associating with awakened teachers); breathwork techniques; and more. Throughout the ages, people have turned to psychotropic substances, as well, to elicit mystical experiences and visions.

Four key practices
Becoming divinely human, however, is not about having a different, more refined, or more transcendent view of things. Nor is it about achieving some kind of permanent residency in an expanded state of awareness. Embodied awakenings are inclusive by nature, and may not have the same kind of flashy experiences as some other paths generate. In evolutionary terms, it seems as if Consciousness has evolved its capacity for Self-exploration so that it no longer requires transcendence of the personal self in order to become Self-aware. The felt sense of the embodied Conscious nature will often be more grounded, and more richly textured, than descriptions of transcendent Consciousness. Yet it still includes a fundamental ease, or wellness of Being, as its basis.

While not technically required for embodied awakening, periods of illumination, insight, or blazes of Consciousness are useful adjuncts to the awakening process, whether they come before or after the fundamental shift into divinely human embodiment. If you are deep in “the rot,” you may not be inclined to do much of anything that calls for effort, or takes you away from the pain of life, including trying to meditate or otherwise alter your state of awareness. That’s really okay—there will be times for striving and times for simply being as you are, and both are natural and appropriate as you move through your awakening process.

Four key practices that are very useful for embodied awakening are 1) gazing and receiving transmission, 2) Inseeing with soul qualities, 3) meditation, and 4) contemplation.
1) Gazing
During the darkness before dawn, the most useful supportive practice is often simple gazing and receiving of transmission. The gentle process of making eye contact with an awakened person can bypass the thinking mind and help open you to a loving transmission of whole being wellness and integration upon which you can template. See Chapter 2 for more information about this foundation practice of embodied awakening.
2) Inseeing with soul qualities
When you find yourself available for some cultivation, you may wish to use Inseeing or other body-centered process to help open your channels to the divine.
One of the most interesting potentials for Inseeing is that it can assist us in directly experiencing what we might call “soul qualities”—peace, love, spaciousness, joy, wellness of being, and many more. These states are natural and inherent in us, and known by our “body wisdom,” though they may be obscured when our focus is caught up in our personal concerns and reactions.

Once you’ve had some practice with using Inseeing to bring warm, loving Presence to whatever issues or concerns are arising in you, you can begin using it to explore more unlimited states of Being. While your physical body is very much anchored in the physical realm, your subtle inner body is both Infinite and finite, a matrix of intelligent, aware energy that is continually registering the whole of every situation, including its inner meaning. Your body knows not only how to heal itself physically, but how to heal itself emotionally and spiritually as well—by integrating and opening those places that in the past were frozen in patterns of trauma and reactivity.

Beyond healing, your inner body also has access to all states of consciousness—they are part of its birthright, so to speak. Therefore you can use the same basic steps of Inseeing you learned in Chapter 5 to invite a felt sense of, for instance, wellness of Being. The key word here is “invite.” Sometimes a shift into an expanded state will be possible and sometimes it won’t. Please don’t let that discourage you. Your body knows what is most important for you at any given time, and if you have pressing issues they will usually need to be given attention before you will be able to invite a soul quality. Just try again at a later time.

To invite a soul quality, first you will want to come into a state of Presence and bring attention to your inner body (refer to Chapter 5 if you need a refresher on this step). If anything shows up strongly as “wanting attention right now,” just explore that as usual. Your best opportunity for inviting an experience of a soul quality is when nothing is clamoring for attention. If nothing is particularly intrusive—and this might happen at the beginning of a session or after you’ve spent some time with a part that needed attention—you might simply ask inwardly, “Would you show me wellness of Being right now?” (or wholeness, peace, love, joy, spaciousness, bliss, creativity, etc.), and be open to whatever comes. Just let yourself receive that.
You can take this one step further, and explore Presence itself. Of course, Presence, being that which is observing all the things and objects that arise into awareness, cannot itself be directly studied in the same way. Still, you have no doubt sensed the spaciousness, warmth, and interested curiosity that are qualities of Presence. Simply take some time to let yourself be those qualities. Relax your focus on what’s arising, let go of noticing sensations, and let Presence turn in upon itself in deepest contemplation. You might discover that Presence is more than a state of consciousness, it is the deepest, truest aspect of Who You Are—that which is unchanging and always- ever-present, yet also intimately personal, warm, and caring. And this recognition is what forms the basis of divinely human awakening and embodiment.

3) Meditation
Meditation is a time-honored means of helping people get beyond their ordinary habits of mind in order to discover other aspects of their total nature. There are many types of meditation that lead to a variety of experiences including, but not limited to, insight into the habitual, repetitive nature of the thinking mind, or the quieting of mental activity altogether leading to deep inner stillness. Although not essential, it might be easier for you to become aware of your true nature as Being, or Consciousness, when your mind is less active and intrusive. When your mind is running full tilt, you may be so identified with that thought stream that nothing else enters in. When thinking and the heart rate slow down and the body becomes quieter, gaps in thought can occur that give you an opportunity to notice that you have an existence beyond thought. In this way, meditation is one of the best tools for discovering what lies beyond the parameters of your normal thinking mind. You don’t have to take this on faith—it is something to investigate, avidly, to find whether it is indeed true for you.

There is no one “right” form of meditation for all people, because people vary so greatly. Initially, meditation may seem difficult and unnatural because sitting still can heighten your awareness of your almost-obsessive thinking. But when you find the practice that resonates with you, you will likely find it to be easy, relaxing, and deeply nurturing—a great opportunity to rest deeply, recharge your batteries, and partake of a special sweet- ness that you normally overlook in the course of a busy day.

Once in a while, you may find yourself graced by the sense of a divine Presence, which can come as inner light, a sense of being filled with wondrous energy, being suffused with exquisite love or compassion, or of having your boundaries dissolve so that you feel yourself extending out into the far reaches of the universe. Or this Presence may come in the form of a divine being, deity, or avatar—such as Jesus, Krishna, Kwan Yin, or Mary. Or you may have a sense of contact with a spirit guide in human, animal, or other-worldly form. These types of contacts bring gifts, whether we know the nature of the gift at first or not. At the very least, they help us discover that creation is far more vast than our ordi- nary human lives normally reveal.

4) Contemplation
What begins as a deliberate practice of meditation (which involves some effort) will at some point evolve into effortless deep contemplation. Deep contemplation (as distinct from the more common sense of “contemplation” as thinking about or ruminating on a topic) happens when the essence of awakening Being (Presence) turns in upon itself rather than being turned outward toward the world. In contemplation you may feel yourself suffused with any of the qualities of the divine— clarity, peace, insight, effulgent light, divine love, inner strength, wisdom, fullness, emptiness, etc.—or you may simply be. Contemplation happens without any effort, as if you are simply settling down into who you are in your deepest essence and not striving for anything at all. The Buddhists call this non-doing, and it is one of the key doorways into the awakened life. It is also a means of savoring and deepening in whatever realization you are currently experiencing.

Some cautions about meditation
Some spiritual teachers emphasize the need for attaining a state of greater perfection in order to be worthy of grace. If you have been trying to use meditation as a tool to fix yourself or make yourself different or better than you already are, your meditation practice itself may have become an obstacle to your awakening. Or you might have come to assume that your true and total Self is only accessible during your periods of meditation, and not during the other hours of the day, and in this way be inadvertently limiting you. In either case, it may be useful to suspend your meditation practice for a while in order to discover what is effortlessly true in every moment of your experience. This is not an indictment of meditation, only a caution that it can sometimes create interference or a set of expectations that can get in the way of fully landing in 24/7 embodied awakening.

Another type of meditation that is potentially harmful is the practice of noticing everything that arises and then dismissing it by calling it “not me.” While a version of this technique can be very useful in making a distinction between Awareness and its objects, this practice can exacerbate the dissociation people feel around disowned shadow aspects of their psyche by reinforcing that they’re “not me.” Because I have found embodied awakening to be most supported by the radical embrace of ALL aspects of yourself, including the shadow parts that were formerly unwelcome, I recommend you steer clear of practices that are dissociative by nature.

Does the mind have to stop?
Perhaps you believe that your mind has to be brought to a complete stop in order for awakening to occur. Indeed, many believe that awakening means the mind has suspended its normal activity and only functions in a highly simplified manner focused on the task at hand. While that may be true for a certain type of awakening, it is not typically a feature of divinely human, embodied awakenings. We have discovered that, paradoxically, the mind can continue its thinking without interfering with a profound, tacit knowing of your infinite transcendent nature.

However, when the mind is hyperactive or compulsively running through thought-loops, it can be difficult or impossible to notice subtle experience or make the inquiries that will lead to clarifying your Conscious nature. This is when practices such as meditation, greenlighting, Inseeing, and psychotherapy that help release the bound energy that is driving the mind’s activity are most useful. What then shifts is a certain amount of the background struggle or resistance to what is (which is experienced as mental pain or suffering) that is ongoing for most people most of the time. Calming the incessant yammering of the inner critic brings about a noticeable quieting of the mental noise most people assume is an inevitable part of life. Hallelujah!

Natural oscillations
It is the nature of glimpses to come and go. Once the wave of heightened awareness has faded, returning you to mundane “normal” consciousness, you may find yourself questioning whether anything about you is different at all. You may be dismayed to find that you still have an overly-active mind, or find yourself doubting the reality of your experience. You may, once again, feel adrift in a confusing world, or that you’ve lost access to that special dimension of awareness or that special sense of guidance from a loving archetypal being. It’s easy to think that you’ve failed, yet again, to achieve your goal of a stable awakening.

But oscillations are a necessary part of the process. Because the vibrational frequency of a glimpse is (by definition) higher, or more refined, than your usual frequency, experiences at that level are seldom easily sustained or recreated at will. Your physiology needs to evolve also, developing greater capacity to sustain higher energy states without injury. Temporary shifts into heightened awareness “stretch” that capacity, so to speak, then recede for a while to allow for integration.
Besides that—and perhaps more importantly—when a special experience recedes, you are then required to search beneath the experiential nature of altered states in order to discover the Consciousness that is always ever present and unchanging—and coming fully awake in and as you. This is very important! Embodied awakening isn’t an experience or a state. As long as you are holding out hope that you will somehow shift into a heightened state and stay there, you will be frustrated in your searching. States are always, by definition, temporary and changing, and embodied awakening is not an altered state but a permanent condition. Oscillations bring us the gift of taking away the shine and dropping us starkly back into our human condition.

Your work, during the “trough” times (as opposed to the peak times), is to discover Being as it expresses itself in all aspects of your life, the mundane and prosaic as well as the sublime. This may be difficult at first, but it is the very place that the lion’s share of embodied awakening takes place. How do you do that? By giving as much attention to what you know as you do to how you currently feel. What is it that is always ever-present, no matter what’s going on?

Interpreting spiritual experiences through your filters
A huge range of descriptions of spiritual experience can be found in the world’s spiritual literature. When you are reading or listening to another’s report, you might get confused and begin to doubt the validity of your own experience. However, there is a framework that may help you understand what is behind all of these differences so that you are not misled by them.

In the world of form, there’s infinite variety. While there are universal themes and archetypes—good and evil, for instance— the specifics of how an archetype manifests vary among different cultures and different languages. Values change over time as well, and behaviors that one culture considers appropriate another culture may abhor. The different spiritual frameworks children are born into shape their worldview and color their experiences.

In contrast to all these variations and perhaps because of them, humans long to find something that is universally true, that transcends this plurality of values, something trustable no matter what. We desire to find an ultimate reality and then bring that level of understanding into our human interactions. This often drives our spiritual seeking and fascinates us with messiahs, or avatars: those who are ostensibly plugged into a universally-true level of understanding and able to share that truth with others.

We can posit that Consciousness is unmoving and un- changing, therefore universally and perpetually the source of “capital T” Truth (as opposed to more relative truths found in manifest reality). We can also assert that when someone has a profound revelation, they are partaking of a universal truth and having the same fundamental experience as any other person who opens to that level of spiritual experience. In other words, we can make a proposition that anyone who fully opens to Consciousness will know it in the same way as anyone else having that experience—because it is both universal and unchanging, hence always the same. But if that is so, why do there appear to be so many very different descriptions of spiritual experiences?

The answer lies not in the experience itself, which is formless, but in the way the mind interprets the experience afterward. Each person who has a mystical experience will interpret it through the spiritual tradition they grew up in or other archetypes that exist in our collective field, through their unique human psycho-emotional identity, and through their level of spiritual unfoldment.

When you have a direct apperception of Consciousness, the sense of being in the presence of that which is unshakably and universally True will most likely persist even as your mind is describing it in form and language that has meaning for you. When you understand this mechanism, you will be more able to look beneath the words of other realizers to the essence of what is being described. You can be inspired by what others are teaching without having to believe that it is the literal or ultimate truth (and yes, this applies to everything I’m writing in this book also!).

Bringing expectations down to earth
Another difficulty you may encounter on your quest for “enlightenment” may occur if you hold high expectations for how your life will feel. A peak experience stands above the ordinary ins and outs of daily life. As if suddenly soaring like an eagle above the landscape, the illuminated view is vast and untroubled by the sorts of concerns and details that generally interfere with inner peace. It’s almost inevitable that spiritual seekers, once they’ve had a taste, hope to experience more. They often hang on to a fantasy—sometimes subconsciously—that one day they will be able to maintain that unbounded, blissful feeling as a permanent, unbroken state.
Some authors pen their accounts of “enlightenment” while still in the throes of an expanded state, glimpse, or other peak experience, as if it is a permanent state. If you could follow up with them weeks or months later, you might find they’ve landed back in their very human condition. But if you only read their descriptions of sublime states, you might be led to expect your own awakening to come with a sustained feeling of bliss—and discount anything other than that.

Again, non-ordinary states are just that: out of the ordinary. They give us insights into the nature of reality and our relationship to it, but they are states, not permanent conditions. In the next chapter we will talk more about the permanent, irrevocable shift into non-separate conscious embodiment, and give a more grounded view of what is possible. While this may have the effect of downgrading your expectations, I do not mean to imply you must settle for something that does not fulfill your aspirations and potential. You will simply be better equipped to cooperate with the process if your framework is appropriate for the stage of development you are currently experiencing. All too many people have hoped for their transformation to come in one fell swoop at the hand of a divine agency that completely uproots all of their so-called “negative” tendencies without any effort on their part. As you observe the process of unfolding into being divinely human, you will find that, in most cases, it is more like a hero’s journey through the trials of the underworld than it is about a sudden, wholesale elimination of the emotional highs and lows of human life.

What is Consciousness?
All great quests begin with something that is sought: the goal, the grail. The quest for enlightenment is no exception, and the goal might be “inner peace,” “equanimity,” “wisdom,” “compassion,” or “Consciousness” itself. Or “God.” Whatever the particular quality that most draws a person, it will no doubt be something ineffable, although they might use terms that point to what it is NOT: not-bound, not-finite, not-limited. They are pointing to something outside of their ordinary separate, finite experience of being a human being, something they have either heard about or had a personal glimpse of, something they intuit would make a real difference in the quality of their life if they only could attain—or obtain—it.

Consciousness, however, is not and can never be an object to be sought, or a goal to be arrived at. This is because Consciousness does not exist at the same level of experience as all of the other things we can be aware of, even the ephemeral ones such as love, compassion, insight, and peace. Each of these has its own flavor, as it were, yet Consciousness stands beyond all flavors, all variation. Instead, Consciousness is the substrate upon which flavor, color, temperature, form, etc. all take shape. In addition, Consciousness is that which is aware of all the “things” that happen in our experience. None of reality as we know it would be perceptible without the perceiver. Consciousness is the perceiver, and also that which makes perception possible.

This can be very tricky to articulate, and here again I ask your indulgence as I attempt to find words that might evoke something for you. Ultimately you will not be able to grasp this fully until your own revelatory experiences make it apparent. The human mind simply does not have the capacity to create a framework for something that is not an object. You will try and fail, and in failing, your mind will be inclined to use skepticism to throw the entire subject into doubt. However, you can begin with a willingness to abide with the not knowing, accepting that your logical thinking mind cannot know everything. And from that beginning, you can become a skilled observer of your own experience, without jumping to premature conclusions about what your experience means.

If we were to begin creating a concept-framework for Consciousness, we might describe it as the Prime Essence, that which is prior to or beneath even the tiniest particles that our quantum physicists are able to identify. It is a field of potential and potency, aware-ized energy, the very foundation of all life and all material in the universe. As such, it has no qualities whatsoever—because to give it any qualities would be to make it more limited, specific and finite than it is. In being without qualities, it cannot be seen, or felt, or experienced by human senses. It can only be intuited by a person who has cultivated their ability to sense into what lies beneath ordinary sense perceptions and day-to-day awareness.

Unmoving Absolute and dynamic Source/substance (two faces of God)
Having said that Consciousness is indescribable, as existing completely beyond anything humans can experience in the usual way, I’d now like to expand the framework a bit to include two “sides” of Consciousness. There is a still, unmoving side that is sometimes called the Absolute, and a more dynamic aspect that is sometimes called the Source—the essence energy of life and creation, or “Mother-Father-God-Goddess-All That Is.”

A useful analogy is that the Ultimate is like a coin with two faces, different yet inseparably One. The still, unmoving Absolute can be likened to our own mind in which thoughts arise but which is itself without form or quality. Dynamic Source, on the other hand, can be experienced in the deepest mystical states as pure Light, pure vibrating Energy, or pure Love. To experience any of these qualities in their purest form requires cultivation, and is considered the penultimate experience (second highest). Then, if your experience goes deeper or beyond that, into the Absolute, you will be unable to describe it in words, because there are no perceptible qualities to be reported or grasped by the mind.

Three primary aspects of dynamic Consciousness
As it begins to take form, Source-Consciousness refracts as through a prism, giving rise to all the forms and abilities that create the perceivable world. Of particular interest to those who are awakening is what I call the three primary aspects of Consciousness: Awareness, Being, and Heart. These aspects do have tangible qualities that are already to some degree experienced by all people.

Awareness has the qualities of clarity, intelligence, and light which enable anything to be experienced or known. Awareness is the means by which Consciousness continually registers everything which is arising as thoughts, feelings, and sensations in the field of perception, memory, or fantasy. It is without boundary, form, or content itself, and is sometimes characterized as an impersonal Witness. As it embodies, however, Awareness is experienced as a more personal sense of Presence, which is primarily sensed in the center of the head, although it permeates the area around the head as well.

Being provides our sense of existence in space-time, and its qualities include stillness, deep peace, and non-separateness. Being is vibrational life energy, the very sense of aliveness that is felt by all beings and is without boundary, form, or content. As the impersonal current of Being moves into embodiment, it becomes the felt senses that connect body with mind and allow for felt meanings to become apparent. While it can be felt anywhere in and around the body, the strongest experience of Being occurs in the belly, where what we call the “ground of Being” can most easily be felt.

Heart is the principle of unconditional love, and is often characterized as the divine Mother, the Goddess, or the Beloved whose welcoming embrace provides a much-needed balm for the soul. Heart is a multi-dimensional center that allows for everything from raw emotion, to subtle feelings, to the rarest, most exquisite divine frequencies. Heart’s awakening may involve many steps to help it heal from the wounds it has sustained as a highly sensitive center of feeling. While Heart-essence is impersonal, infinite, and unbounded, as it embodies it is experienced most strongly in the center of the chest where it becomes very personal caring, tenderness, and compassion for the human predicament as well as our personal suffering.

You will likely have easier access to, and awaken via, one or perhaps two of these aspects of Consciousness. The common thread through all of them is that their impersonal aspects are infinite and without boundaries—thereby making experience of non-separate Onlyness possible—while their more personal aspects are accessible here and now and are to some degree experienced by everyone. Awakening to any of these aspects of Consciousness will give you access to the infinite, to the divine. While any of these are sufficient for embodied awakening, at some point you may be drawn to explore the other aspects as part of the natural unfoldment of your Conscious nature.

Inner divinity and the divine Other (I-Thou)
A natural outcome of an awakening experience could be an inclination to proclaim yourself to be God: I Am That. Which is true—in one sense. But don’t forget that your human self can only know, interpret, and express a fairly limited range of what That is. What is true is that you are of the same essence as That. That is the stuff of which you are made, and That is what is perceiving and experiencing as and through you, as well as being the essence of all that is perceived. We could make a case for saying ALL IS CONSCIOUSNESS, including you. And rightly enough. Yet for all practical purposes, there will remain an I-Thou relationship with the divine, because what any human can experience and demonstrate at any given time is but a fraction of the spirit/matter universe.

Glimpses are only the beginning
In other words, awakening will not turn you into God, nor will it merely enable you to realize your pre-existing oneness with the divine. It will bring your pre-existing divine nature into your full conscious awareness where it can become a living, creative force. In Chapter 10, I’ll describe the fundamental shift of embodied awakening—from experiencing yourself as a separate, isolated human being to experiencing yourself as inseparable divinity coupled with finite humanity. While including the human parts of our experience may seem limiting, it also brings incredible richness to our experience. But it is not by choice that we do this anyway: it seems to be the very direction evolution is taking us.