Spiritual Awakening Is Easier Now Than Ever

So back to what I was talking about. So I believe that awakening is both sudden and gradual and that there is a lot you can do to speed up the process of embodiment. awakening. and spiritual evolution.

And when I was more So I believe that I believe that we all can awaken right now. We all can fully awaken. step into our own human and spiritual potential. and live from our personal transmission and live our calling.

My view is that awakening and spiritual evolution is both sudden and gradual. and that as the communal consciousness becomes more and more lighter and more open to the death of the self and has less of a rigid attachment to the self. that moving from glimpses of awakening to abiding awakening gets easier and easier. So that if you were alive in.

say. the 50s or the 60s. it would have been much harder to become enlightened and live an enlightened life. Versus now.

I believe it's much easier. And it will continue to get easier as more and more people become conscious. awaken. and fully embody their own realizations and their own truths.

My goal as a spiritual teacher is to help people that want to fully awaken and step through the door of abiding awakening into their own personal transmission. full potential. and living from their own calling. I was able to do it myself.

and I believe that many other people are able to do it or have done it. and that there is a huge opportunity to do that right now. So. I created the Theory of One and Two and Liquid Armature as a bridge and a way to communicate my own insights and lived experiences from the path of spiritual evolution and moving into abiding awakening.

and also from my human path of emotional maturation and healing. A large portion are passed down in my lineage. I was asked to teach by Sharon Landreth. who was asked to teach by Adyashanti.

Adyashanti is in a traditional Zen Buddhist lineage. but is often described as a non-dual or Advaita Vedanta style teacher. So my theories and my teaching style and what I say is largely influenced by my lineage and also by my life. I've always had a very strong resonance with Buddhism.

Tibetan Buddhism specifically. When I was 19. I remember I went into the woods. I was very upset about.

I think it was breaking. having to break up with my girlfriend at the time. maybe I was 20. I went into the woods.

I sat down on a rock. and I was bawling. I was very. very upset.

And then this voice came into my head. and it was just repeating Buddhist scripture. I guess you call it. or Buddhist.

I don't think scripture is the right word. but Buddhist texts. religious texts in my head. I didn't really know what it was.

And then when I was a Buddhist major in college. about six years later. I ended up reading the very text that was being repeated in my head. which was quite interesting.

So that I did my thesis in Taoism. I wrote my thesis on Wu Wei. which is non-doing in the Zhuangzi. which is a famous Taoist text.

And then I went to Naropa University. which is a Tibetan Buddhist university for psychotherapy. I also did research in Richie Davidson's laboratory studying meditation and in Giulio Tononi's laboratory studying consciousness and went to medical school for a couple years. So back to what I was talking about.

So I believe that awakening is both sudden and gradual and that there is a lot you can do to speed up the process of embodiment. awakening. and spiritual evolution. And when I was more fully kind of on the path.

on the kind of seeking path. so to speak. or the path of healing or of evolution. I identified the most important truths and practices that Adyashanti taught and that Sharon Landrith taught and that other great teachers that I resonated with taught.

such as Nisargadatta Maharaj. Shonryu Suzuki. and also. truths from therapeutic modalities.

as I'm a therapist. And then I practiced them repetitively over and over again for about five years. For example. I did loving-kindness practice every day for 30 minutes for about six months.

You know. maybe five days a week. six days a week. but almost every day.

And over time. what happened is it began as the first two months I felt nothing. I guess longer than six months. probably for a year or longer.

And then after a few months. I felt this subtle warmth in my chest. very. very slight.

And then after four or five months. it was like this raging fire. and I would just sweat as I was doing the loving-kindness practice. almost like a.

if you're familiar with Tibetan. like a Gutumo practice. Meditation of inner heat. It's a tantric practice.

And so each of these touchstones. these pointers that Adyashanti would repeat over and over. that Sharon Landis would repeat. that all these great teachers would repeat.

I would identify them and then label them and then put them into my kind of the way my brain works. It creates this orderly system and then it and then I would reference that with a body sensation and a physical practice. And then I would just over and over and over again do it. My drive on the spiritual path came out of fear and suffering and a desire to not die and a desire to not suffer anymore.

It's very. very strong. You know. when they say.

meditate like your hair is on fire. that was me. I was doing that. I was probably the youngest person or second youngest person at all the Adyashanti retreats I went to.

Everybody was over 50. I was. you know. 25.

26. something like that. Another example of this is: I would work. I worked at.

I was working at Richie Davidson's meditation lab in the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the time. or for a part of it. And I would go to work. and then I would come home from work.

And the minute I got home from work. what I would do is I would go to my meditation spot and I would sit. Didn't do anything else. And I would sit there until I got to the deepest.

most authentic experience of truth that I had ever had. And then I would go about my day. the rest of my night. And if it took 10 minutes.

I'd sit for 10 minutes. And if it took three hours. I sat for three hours. And I did that every night.

Every day. For years. year or two. Right?

And so that's what I mean. It's sudden and it's gradual. My first awakening was sudden. I meditated for three months.

I was 18 years old. I meditated for three months. 20 minutes a day. five.

six days a week. I was reading Jon Kabat-Zinn's book. Wherever You Go. There You Are.

and just kind of taking the exercises at the end of the chapters and trying them out. And after three months. I stopped smoking marijuana. and then the next day.

I had a huge awakening experience that lasted four months. So basically. that's sudden. It's not gradual.

There's nothing gradual about it. Then my identity came back. and then the gradual process occurred. And then I had another awakening experience seven years later.

right before I went two years. two weeks before I went on my first Adyashanti retreat. And that was sudden. And then I cried for three years straight.

about two to three hours a day. That was gradual. After that second awakening. that was part of my healing process.

both therapeutically but also spiritually. And I had a huge shift where I came into contact and let go of my fear of death. That was sudden. Kind of sudden.

It lasted like two days. and then all of a sudden it shipped. Well. the whole retreat I was kind of.

it's a totally different story. I apologize. But basically. the whole retreat I was struggling with the fear of death.

but didn't know it. It was a solo. silent retreat in Vajrapani. And then all of a sudden.

I talked to Locke Kelly at the time. He's also a teacher that was asked by Adyashanti to teach. It was my second time talking to him in the retreat. And he said.

oh. I think you're. you know. sounds like you're kind of at the point of your spiritual path where you're coming into contact with your fear of death.

And I said. oh. I don't think so. That doesn't resonate.

And I got off the phone and it was like. boom. yes. of course.

that's exactly what it was. He was totally right. And then everything shifted. Right?

So it's sudden and gradual. And so what I recommend. what I tell my students. is when there's something to be done.

do it. And when there's nothing to be done. then just let go. So get yourself to the door and then wait for God to let you in.

That's what I do. I just get myself to the door. I can get myself to that door. I know how.

And then I know if I wait and with the right openness and quality of attention and commitment to truth and integrity. that God will just open that door for me and pull me right through. Right? And that's the key to all this.

We're just getting ourselves to that door over and over and just waiting for a little bit of help. And more often than not. the universe comes and opens that door right for us. and then we fall right in to our own center of being.

our own innate wholeness. our own authentic presence. our own emptiness and fullness. Right?

We literally become the pregnant void. I laugh because that's what we always were. So how can we become what we already are? But once again.

another paradox.