A Journey into Wholeness

“The ‘I am’ is the sum total of all that you perceive, it’s time-bound, the ‘I am’ itself is an illusion, you are not the ‘I am’ you are prior to it….All knowledge, including the ‘I am’ is formless, throw out the ‘I am’ and stay put in quietude….Sitting quietly, being one with the knowledge ‘I am’, you will lose all concern with the world, then the ‘I am’ will also go, leaving you as the Absolute.”

• Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

I was born with privilege into an upper-middle-class family. My Dad was and is a University Professor, and my Mom stayed home supporting my sisters and me during the day. As a young child, my parents gave me the opportunity and space to wonder, explore, and have a voice. (Which should be accessible to every child.) During these initial essential years, I was curious about the night sky and all the different species that shared their existence with me. This wonder led me to explore the wild desert hills behind my Southern California home. This wonder led me to imagine traveling into the stars. This wonder and time to explore led me to see such intelligence in the eyes of the animals I came into contact with. This wonder led me to feel the energy flowing through the trees I climbed. This wonder led me to run as fast as possible and as far as I could go to feel the joy and energy flowing through my body. This wonder led me to see such mystery of the Universe that, at times, I was overwhelmed. Without knowing it, I was in love with the world around me.

By the age of 10, things had begun to change. I saw that the love my parents gave was conditional. They did the best they knew how, but they were heavily conditioned. The things I did either gave me acceptance and love, or else illustrated to me that there was something in me that was wrong and not okay. Without having conversations around these things to see what this even meant, I was left to decipher this on my own with a young child’s brain. I began to sense that something was inherently wrong in the world and possibly inside myself.

I was also confused by our culture. I didn’t understand wars. How did that solve anything? Blowing up other people was supposed to create peace? That made no sense, even to a young child. I didn’t know why we destroyed nature. How is it that we destroyed the very thing that gave us life and that we are a part of? I didn’t understand poverty. How is it that many people struggled and had limited resources? That didn’t seem like community to me. I didn’t understand ownership. Who gets to own things and why? Why couldn’t we live with a community of people and share? I didn’t understand school. School didn’t seem like it had anything to do with learning and diving into things where a child’s voice mattered. I felt my voice didn’t matter, though I couldn’t articulate this then. It was as if I had to hold a certain cultural standard to be seen and recognized, and I knew this standard wasn’t me. Yet, as a child, I internalized this as if something was wrong with me.

School had become like a prison. I had no choice in what I was to learn. I was taught that learning had a goal and that my knowledge was judged. I was essentially told that I wasn’t okay with who I was and that I needed to work hard, compete, and push through classes to get the grades that would lead me to societal success. I was graded to measure what I had learned through tests, papers, and projects. This judging subtly told me whether I was smart enough or how well I compared to my friends and peers. This form of coercive education had nothing to do with learning. It was really about conditioning my peers and me to fit into our fear-based society, isolate ourselves, and lead lives of quiet desperation so that we would keep our economy going and keep the hierarchical structure in place. Education subjugated us into ignorance and to buy into the economic dictates of this culture. It taught us not to question and to follow authority. It herded us into ignorance.

Over time, our education system destroyed my love of learning. I hated school, but I couldn’t articulate the reasons. I fought with my parents, especially around school. The message was that if I didn’t study hard and earn good grades, I would make a mess out of my life. This makes sense, as they were taught the same thing.

This society was built into a perpetuation of separative egoic people programmed to compete within a debilitating class system. I didn’t want to be a part of this. At the time, I could not articulate this to my parents. They thought I was probably angry or lazy because my actions mirrored that. However, it was much deeper than that for me. The school system didn’t make sense to me. I was lost in navigating a system I hated, yet I still had to participate. And deep down, I felt there was a better way to live. Yet, how could a child see this or communicate something of this complexity?

Also, I wanted to avoid being told what to do. I didn’t like authority. I also didn’t consciously know why I felt that way then. I see now that at a subtle level, I knew that this wasn’t learning and that authority was no path to truth and love. Again, authoritative structures were taught in society, and it would be hard to question this. Yet, a school system based on authority and control is fear-based, and what is in the beginning is in the end. Instead of giving voice and an ability to think critically and question, authority squashed deep compilation and one’s voice. Most children learn to obey authority, for they see the consequences of acting out and quickly become followers of the dominant society and fall into the roles our culture tells them to play. At some level, I knew I didn’t want to lose my voice or wonder, so I fought against it. Again, there was no way I could explain this at the time.

I was bullied relentlessly, beginning around the age of nine. This had a profound effect on my psyche. I internalized the verbal abuse that the kids were relentlessly attacking me with. This trauma led me to internalize their abuse and to create the belief that I was what they said so that they couldn’t hurt me. My self-esteem was shot. Every day, I felt confused. I was lonely, though I had friends. I had no idea who I was. I grasped at many things to find some connection, yet everything seemed like ash. Somehow, I kept wearing masks to fool people into thinking I was confident and okay. Inside, though, I was in constant conflict.

This internal suffering continued until something happened that changed the way I thought and perceived…. It led me on a journey into wholeness. This journey illuminated that life in its diversity is one, that there is no need for authority, and by tapping into wholeness, we can be in joy and love and live sustainability with each other and the earth. It was also confronting the hierarchical structure and the deep understanding that wealth has nothing to do with joy or true success that helped me see that the psychological issues are a direct result of living within the confines of this culture.

By the time I entered college, I was battling for control. I had continued down a path of anxiety and conflict, trying so hard to navigate my life, and sailed down the razor’s edge of conformity and anarchy. I was in a battle of judgment and hate, love and kindness. Confusion dominated my life. Until one day, I finally stopped and listened.

I was slipping off the ledge into a deep depression. I just couldn’t keep going down this exhausting path, filling me with such emptiness. I was stuck in beliefs I tried to find comfort in, but it was like bandaging a gaping festering infected wound. Though I lived on the upper levels of our class system, I still greatly suffered, and everything I did seemed to make the suffering grow deeper. I think this is something I came to see so clearly. This is because, no matter what “level” one occupies in the hierarchy of our culture’s dysfunctional class system, suffering is a part of it for in all aspects, it is not only disconnected from life but is also contributing to consistent harm.

Materialism can never fill the void of disconnect. I felt this deeply. Until I came to the point where I felt like I had nowhere to go, and I finally surrendered. The summer after my sophomore year at the University of Oregon, I stopped fighting, gave up, and finally listened. I was 19, and there was no trying to let go. I was done.

I played basketball with a few friends during a warm summer in Eugene, Oregon. After the game, my friend asked if I wanted to drop acid with them. I had not heard much about LSD but knew it was a psychedelic. I had no idea that it would be beyond anything I could imagine. It was simply transformative.

At the time, I had no idea that research would illustrate how psychedelics could open one’s mind to seeing oneself and the world differently and help people with depression, suicidal ideations, and end-of-life experiences. However, I knew that a part of me was looking for something to open me and that maybe this could be the spark. Little did I know that an inferno of clarity would consume all my illusions and transform them into dust.

The following day, the four of us met at the basketball court. My friend gave me a tiny stamp and said to put it under my tongue, keep it there, and wait for it to kick in. It had no flavor and dissolved in my mouth after a few minutes. I had no idea what would happen. We decided to go on a slow walk.

After about 30 minutes of climbing up a hillside, I began to feel a lightness spreading through my entire being. It was as if the sun was within me. I realized I needed to be alone. Something was taking place, and I didn’t want to talk. I just wanted to sit and be in what was happening. So I told them to keep going and that I would sit and be for a while.

I found myself on a bluff looking out over a meandering river. Soft white clouds flowed gently across a cerulean sky. The river was a liquid blue, gliding slowly and steadily, timeless yet constantly changing. Bird songs burst in color.

Time stood still. All of a sudden, I felt completely absorbed by an ever-expanding quiet. My thoughts disappeared as my ego melted away, and the light of pure awareness removed all barriers. Wholeness entered. A soft lightness of stillness flowed in an indescribable presence. There was no self. I was all that is and was and would ever be. There was no division anywhere. Myself, the earth, and the Universe melted into an immeasurable oneness. There was no union for there was no me to join anything. There was an indescribable lightness of being, an energy that couldn’t be contained, yet there was no knowing it…for I was it. All was NOW, the ultimate source of reality, the complete immeasurable, Wholeness.

Without trying, I had let go of the tiller of control. All was clear. It wasn’t until later that I could describe what had happened. I understood entirely that control was an illusion. I saw that I had been playing out societal perpetuated roles. I noticed that the hell I was living was created by my thinking, built by my past conditioning and societal influences, especially by my education. I saw that the business of my life kept me in numbness and from feeling alive as I tried to distract myself from my inner pain.

I noticed that our culture was dissected from nature because of ignorance. I saw that our culture had created a way directly opposed to goodness and love, for it was born out of separation and fear. I realized that I was living in a dream and now waking up. I lived what was always what is…presence, complete presence with no beginning or end, no definitions, no identifications, no beliefs, no inside or outside, no thoughts, but simply complete and utter Wholeness — holiness. Holiness… Joy lit up everything like warm golden shafts of sunlight. I knew directly that I was completely okay and beautiful and perfect. I knew nobody could dictate my life unless I gave them the power to do so. I had let go of my tiller. I had let go of my enculturated self. I had let go of everything. All was and is and will be flowed through an indefinable Wholeness.

I understood that all was love, that wholeness was all, and that truth was now, and in that presence is timeless quietness, which can never be perceived or experienced. Presence is complete and unknowable, yet it is the very nature of who one is. This presence is Wholeness — Wholeness, for there lies no division, time, or space. It is complete, perfect, and undefined.

I realized that this is the only journey that matters, a journey of slaying away every attachment and belief, a complete letting go until one is left with nothing but the very essence of all that is, wholeness. Letting go of all beliefs, all opinions, all thoughts. I understood that letting go comes from directly confronting with awareness of the entire thinking apparatus. After the acid left my system, my ego reemerged. Yet, I was changed and couldn’t help but keep digging in.

What felt like no time had been 3 hours. My ego came back, yet I was changed. Moving forward, I realized that though I had this awakening, I was far from done. The road I now embarked on was challenging, lonely, and sometimes brutal, for my ego fought to continue and not let go of its hold. I didn’t know what to do or how to dig in. I had glimpses of wholeness for many years, yet I would slip back into my ego. It wasn’t until I picked up a book by Jiddu Krishnamurti that I began to see a way out of the prison of my enculturated mind. He pointed to questioning thoughts, so I started digging into my thought patterns. And as I observed my thoughts without trying to change them, without fighting against them, my unconscious began to be perceived.

As I stopped trying to push down or hide away from it, my unconscious thoughts and deep beliefs about myself emerged. I started going into the darkest recesses of myself, the tangled mythological forest of my enculturated self, traumas, defenses, and attachments. I see how the very act of awareness of thoughts is how one lets go of desire and attachments without trying.

One could describe this as part of the hero’s journey that Joseph Campbell is talking about. “You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. You will not realize your potential if you follow someone else’s way.” The ego wanted to hold onto the thought apparatus and attachments. Yet, in awareness, I was directly observing that these attachments were nothing more than phantoms. But, along this journey, there came to be more letting go, more moments of insight, and flashes of pure joy. The more I slayed my ignorance, the more I could see and find my inner health, and the more I drew into an indescribable quiet.

There is a profound quiet that is wholeness. Jiddu Krishnamurti described this silence beautifully. “So we are talking of a stillness that is not dependent on anything. And it is only that quality of stillness, that absolute silence of the mind, that can see that which is eternal, timeless, nameless. This is meditation….Silence is difficult and arduous; it is not to be played with. It isn’t something you can experience by reading a book, or by listening to a talk, sitting together, or retiring into a wood or monastery. I am afraid none of these things will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense psychological work. You have to be burningly aware of your snobbishness, aware of your fears, your anxieties, and your sense of guilt. And when you die to all that, then out of that dying comes the beauty of silence.” This is accessible to everyone. And as he points out, it demands diving into listening, listening into our psyche. Awareness must be present in all our reactions and actions.

Waking up and living in love, truth, and compassion was the journey I had no choice but to embark upon, no matter what would be placed on my path. I leaped into the caves of my ignorance by confronting with awareness of the traumas, pains, and beliefs. I began to understand how the enculturated self is born and how this self wanted to stay secure in the known and not journey within. Yet, I understood that in transcending the enculturated ego, these fears were nothing more than delusions, illusions of my own making and that the true i is wholeness, a place that is all that is.

It is what I came to understand Sri Nisagaddata Maharaj was pointing to. One of the points he made was, “It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false, and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, and truth liberates…..The sense of ‘I am’ is your own. You cannot part with it, but you can impart it to anything, as in saying, I am young, rich, and so on. But such self-identifications are patently false and the cause of bondage.” This sense in us, the I am, is there waiting. Yet, it is not the I we think or believe it to be. Once you arrive here, be still with it. This is where one goes beyond even the I am into Wholeness.

Wholeness has no labels nor bounds. It flows through all and is all. Wholeness lies waiting in presence. Yet, to get there, as I have pointed out, is so simple, yet feels so far away, for we have been taught to push it down through living in the dysfunction of this culture.

By not relenting and continuing to enflame my mind with awareness, I burned through layers of self into my desires, attachments, and beliefs. In awareness, I incinerated my delusion. Again, this isn’t a trying to get rid of but a direct seeing into the nature of thought and the enculturated self. I went my own way, one that pointed to what lies within all of us and how culture imprisons us into a dream state that covers up who one is.

There is only one thing, and there has only been one thing that can transform our society. The only thing we can do, the only thing that matters, the only thing left to do, is to take the arduous journey into oneself and discover who one truly is. Society is not outside of us; society is us.

If we can begin to see that who we are is so much more than who we have been taught to be, we will discover there are different ways we can lie together on this planet. Here, one sees there is no need for Government or State to dictate our lives. There is no need for hierarchy or power structures.

To wake up and confront our enculturated dysfunction, we must take the journey within, dig underneath our conditioned thought-induced self to directly see it for what it is, and discover the quiet, utter stillness beyond all knowledge. This is the only way to wake up from our cultural dream state. Nobody can do it for us. Only oneself can take this journey. There can be many pointers and people to support one on the journey, but the psychological journey can only be taken by oneself. People, religions, and psychedelics can only point the way. In the end, as in the beginning, this heroic journey must be taken alone.

The journey to discover who one is is the most extraordinary journey we could ever embark on. This journey leads one through the dark, hellish world we have individually and collectively imagined back into the interconnected landscape of awakening. This journey is shedding off all identifications and beliefs that hold us back from meeting our fullest potential. Who we are is beyond anything one can imagine. Who we are isn’t in the pathways of thought. Who we are isn’t in the confines of conditioning. Who we are is beyond the realm of time or measurement. Who we are is not separate, isolated, nor stuck in the pathways of desire, identity, or belief. This journey is about being aware, in the quiet listening of our mind. Through inward listening, one shall see that the conditioned self we bring into our daily adventure is not who we are but part of the cultural dreamscape satiated in sorrow and drama. In listening, we shall see the most profound sense of wholeness, interconnectivity, and love: that we are all, and all is us.

We will see inherently that only when our minds become quiet will we know the right action. This is the simplicity. Presence. Here is where we tap into our wholeness and see what we need. Here, desires dissolve like the fog on an early morning summer day. Here, one would understand that there is no need for any power structure or the State. By bringing the community into the fold through freedom, a way of living with the planet in wholeness, interconnection, and sustainability would naturally come into being.

Living in Wholeness and love is a difficult task. At first glance, it is much easier to live in drama. Fortunately, this isn’t the case. There may be a reason most of us are terrified to sit quietly with ourselves and begin this journey into ourselves. The journey into oneself seems like an arduous undertaking. This journey brings us into the dominion of our ignorance and pain, the nature of our enculturated self, the self we are attached to and don’t want to let go of. It will bring into question our beliefs, assumptions, and opinions built into us throughout our lives and the understanding that our society is not somewhere outside of ourselves but instead is us. It will confront our comfort with our attachment to the known in all intents and practices. Yet, the irony is that our suffering is always with us, no matter how far we push it down, and those pains we think we have covered impact our actions every step of the way.

As we confront our walls of belief, we shall see that those walls do nothing but create more hurt and suffering in the long run. These walls force us into constant conflict, blocking us from seeing the essence of who we are. These walls create great suffering because, in actuality, they do not defend us from pain or hurt. Instead, our pain and discomfort get buried in our bodies and dwell as unconscious, unresolved issues. To see this, one needs to be present and awake. This means listening not only to what we are sensing around us but also within ourselves.

We see directly into what is when we listen without escaping or desiring to gain something or to be somewhere else. In this awareness is clarity. The false is seen and disappears through awareness, while truth emerges underneath our delusion.

To be awake means to be in truth. This means being aware of what is not true, such as thoughts. It means looking at your beliefs and opinions and seeing how they influence your actions. It means not to run away from or even fight complicated feelings but to listen and look at them and see what is false or true. It is to tear away the false, to get down to the very core of truth. This can be painful, so most people like to stay in the known. The known is secure. We think we know what it is we know. There is a false sense of security in this. But it is here that we are enslaved and dead to life. And here, we can become the hero within, slay our ignorance, and open into the light of awakening.

Suppose we can go through the process of cutting away our emotional attachments, confronting fear head-on, to begin going further, to touch the core of truth. In that case, we may discover that life is extraordinary as the chains are thrown out. Thoreau put it nicely. He said, “Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvium which covers the globe…through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin…”

What holds us back is our own minds. Scott Forbes said, “It is not so much the things outside the mind that enslaves people. It is the inner attachments.” To look, we must be honest with ourselves and not run away. By doing so, we can begin trusting in life and our children. It also means that we start to see that the world we have existed in is built by the way we think about the world. How we see the world is produced and orchestrated by our thoughts.

The beautiful thing is that we can wake up whenever we want. Wholeness and love can never be destroyed and always is. Take the journey into the self, and we will see that this is the case. This can happen if we learn to stop and listen openly and have the courage to dive into truth and destroy ignorance. In this, listening is wonder, tapping into presence. Presence is right here, right now, beyond time or measurement, always. This is where, instead of reacting to thought, we listen and observe and see what enculturated thinking is — fragmented measuring based on cultural conditioning.

As we dive into awareness and our minds quiet, wholeness is tapped into, and love and freedom flow. In love is true power, a power that is infinitely greater than the artificial power of fear and acquisition. Love isn’t fear. Love is unconditioned, a strength beyond courage. Love cannot be destroyed, no matter how hard we try. In love is an all-pervading joy and goodness that flows without constraint. In love is Wholeness.

If you have time, I would love to hear your perspective. :)