How can we properly relate to spiritual experiences? Are they the goal? The cure? Signs of greatness? Enlightenment itself?

A Living Tantra reader from California writes:

I have been to the mountain top…nirvikalpa. Two and a half years ago. And since I have experienced other levels of samadhi. Yet lately I feel I am whithering on the vine. For 5 and a half years I have lived in an apartment complex that is entirely out of sync with my life, who I am. Two years ago a new neighbor moved in and since I have been falling further and further away from satya. There is such a feeling of discontent.

This dear reader goes on to say that many things feel uncomfortable: lack of employment, pollution in her environment and so on.

All of the great teachers ask us to digest and stabilize the wisdom of spiritual experience and then move on. This means that spiritual experiences are opportunities to first recognize the wisdom being communicated and then to open and strive to make that our embodied understanding–a natural part of our everyday life. We should not attach ourselves to the story of our experience. We should work directly with the transmission.

The litmus test of any spiritual experience is what did I learn about Reality, and how am I showing up in the world now. Can I stabilize and integrate new understanding into my everyday life? This is where regular sadhana and the guidance of a teacher are crucial.

Now, samadhi means different things to different people. To many people reading about it or mistaking some other experience for samadhi, it simply means lost in bliss. People associate states of withdrawal (pratyahara) and being tranced out with samadhi and get pretty excited when someone becomes inert or seemingly insensible to the world.

These notions of samadhi are based on a transcendental View–that the goal of human life is to leave the messy, dirty physical plane behind and transcend to a supposed spiritual plane, become immersed in that and oblivious to all else.

I have not spent a lot of time reading up on the varieties of samadhi described in various texts. I can tell you that any event worth anything in my life has been marked by an expanded sense of awareness and a transmission of something about Reality, about the world. So let me talk about Realization instead of samadhi.

Realization is total awakeness. No matter what the physical expression. And it is 360 degree awakeness. For instance, there are states of experiencing in which one loses all sense of individual life. But Realization includes awareness of all possibilities, of all of life’s expressions.

Anandamayi MA said:

While absorbed in meditation, whether one is conscious of the body or not, whether there be a sense of identification with the physical or not–under all circumstances, it is imperative to remain wide-awake; unconsciousness must be strictly avoided…..If tempted at the first touch of Bliss to allow oneself to be drowned in it, and later to declare: ‘Where I was, I cannot say, I do not know,’ –this is not desirable. As one becomes capable of real meditation, and to the extent that one contacts Reality, one discovers the ineffable joy that lies hidden even in all outer objects.

So, when moments of consciously embodying awakeness come your way, that is when you must hop on the opportunity to recognize that and abide or continue in it as long as you can. There are many techniques for stabilizing the recognition of the natural state. Nearly all of what we call sadhana is directed toward this aim.

I don’t know what any person has actually experienced, but feeling so uncomfortable in one’s life for years on end and attributing this largely to external circumstances is a very common kind of fixation, aka limitation of View. Whatever arose during those earlier experiences–samadhi or not–has not been stabilized. And so it is best to forget about that and deal with one’s present circumstance directly.

When we remain in a situation, feeling oppressed, this is a habit pattern that we can change. We can take responsibility for the pattern and make a strong decision to break out of it using the many tools at our disposal.

We know that external circumstances are not the cause of our discomfort because those who have undertaken consistent spiritual practice and who are committed to using their uncomfortable circumstances to open to greater Realization eventually find that they are not so reactive to circumstance.

Swami Rudrananda used to say that if he felt dissatisfaction in his life, he would look in the mirror and say “You idiot!”

We don’t have to be so hard on ourselves, unless that works for you, but we do have to recognize that it’s nobody’s responsibility but our own.

As Tantrikas, we view every aspect of our life as a potential tool for relaxing stuck patterns and getting back in the flow. We look at our diet, our daily routine, our sadhana, and our mental concepts and attitudes. We also get help. We don’t brow beat ourselves for our limitations, or blame others. We take a very practical approach. Getting help is part of taking responsibility.

Swami Rudrananda also used to say that after every opening into new level of functioning, the world tests us to see if we can maintain that level. My View is that we are not literally subjected to a test. Instead, the difference between this new level of functioning and our old level becomes more apparent to us as if a harsh light were shining on it.

We may feel strongly discontented with our old ways now that we have glimpsed the new, yet karmic momentum still draws us back to our old habits. We must apply some additional effort to relax those tensions, relax our attachment to our old pleasures and more fully embody the wider View.

So the hard work begins after the “peak” experience has subsided.

While it may be the case that the wisdom in some particular experience is lost, such loss is always just another experience, and it is temporary. The wisdom and grace of the world is available to us in every moment and in every aspect of life. While we tend to think of wisdom and grace as transcendent powers, the truth is that they are inherent in everything. They are both transcendent and immanent. So working directly with the stuff of the everyday–our diet and routine for instance–can help us to relax and discover wisdom and grace directly again.

In Ma’s love,
Shambhavi

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