saghora… the awakening
Enlightenment through darkness
“Anyone could fully awaken within two years if they only wanted to. There is absolutely nothing special about that. And yet people act like little children. And unfortunately there is still a bit of grace involved…and work.”
In Saghori, awakening is defined by six stages.
1. Opening of the third eye: the so-called ‘seeing’ occurs. This is perception with the non-human senses. At this stage, we see energies and movements in astral space, we can ‘read’ people by perceiving the thoughts and feelings of others.
The world appears as a holistic network of energies.
2. Moksha: the permanent attainment of nonduality. The world’s values are completely shattered within you, there is no more duality in the true self. This state of being is equated with satori in Zen.
3. Awakening of the Kundalini: the primordial energy has freed itself and burned away all obstacles and limitations.
4. Permanent union with the divine within us, the human within us has died, everything is divine, everything dances. There is direct access to the matrix of reality, everything is possible, nothing is necessary.
5. knowledge and overcoming of the three qualities. The three gunas have been completely understood by our soul, we experience them but are no longer affected by them in our true self. The seeker has attained trigunarahita.
6. complete awakening. All attachments are dissolved, we are no longer body, thoughts, feelings. The Self is recognized as space, free and without content. The stabilization and realization of this being is the only remaining task. We are in absolute love, the full realization of the Highest Self.
The initiation in Saghori is the initiation into darkness. We have to face our deepest darknesses, our isolation, our worst depressions, fears and illusions. The path of Saghori takes us into these realms. In, through, away.
Like the heroes of the old legends, we face our dragons and demons in the dark caves. Only through this process can our pure and true self be liberated as energy.
Although awakening is accompanied by experiences, it is not an experience as such, as it changes the person who experiences something. Our old ego lived with experiences, our true self lives through pure being.
Enlightenment is not a state that suddenly begins, because everything that begins also has an end.
Our true self is imperishable and has therefore always been there.
Enlightenment is not a gain, it is the loss of our blockage.
When we are born, we are free energy. In order to move around in the world, a center for collecting information was created in us, our ego. This ego is effectively our false self. Through identification, we create a prison of fear and greed. We want good things and avoid bad things. This is the basis of our illusion. We experience ourselves as separate from others, and this is where all problems begin, both internal and external.
These realities are completely destroyed in the awakening process.
As long as we identify ourselves, we are trapped and exposed to impermanence. Every identification must be destroyed, no matter which one.
Ramana Maharshi taught the path of silence and self-analysis. He said there is only one question: “Who am I?”
Whoever seriously seeks this answer will give up all identification, because we are not that. It is only our fear of emptiness and our greed for position that make us fall into this trap. Anyone who adds anything after the words “I am…” is not in the true self, but in illusion.
Jed McKenna teaches a similar path. He has his seekers write down everything they are. Then they are allowed to cross out everything that is transient so that they learn that there is no identity. In our modern age of hyper-identity, this is of course the opposite. But it is the only way.
You are not your body, not your gender, not your country, not your idea of life, not your opinion or your taste. You are clear consciousness and burning energy, empty and without content, full of love and light.
And this energy destroys everything that is not the real thing when we connect with it.
Saghor, Saghori, Saghora
Here is Ignatius Kal’s story about his awakening:
“Even though many say that enlightenment happens with a bang, I have had different experiences. Of course there is such a bang, but there is more.
There are stages, processes that bring you closer and closer to your true self through various initiations. The moment of breakthrough can have devastating effects on an unformed person. Only those who have built a foundation through years of practice, concentration and strengthening their energy find themselves in a healthy state to make the transition smoother. And still everything flies around your ears.
When I had my first awakening after three years in the Zen temple, it was like an explosion. But that was just the beginning. Now I was ready to burn my humanity in the stability of the nondual space. I would hardly have been able to go through this process before.
And then Saturn came from the edge of the universe, and that consciousness squeezed me through a press of trials, and out the other end came the essence of being.
Saturn was the key.
I hadn’t planned the awakening of the Kundalini at all, it happened by the way. I worked with my daggers of the gods, the phurbas. Each time I did this, I transformed into this dagger, which is located in my spine. For many weeks, I visualized an energy rising up there every day. Then I stabbed my ego with all my strength, I did this every day. I could not and did not want to live another second in the illusion of this ego, I was ready to die. I could no longer accept any movement as long as it was ordered by my ego. So for many weeks I just sat around without moving. I waited for an impulse that didn’t come from my ego. Huge depressions came up. And I channeled all the divine anger in me against my limited humanity. I started spiritual suicide. And then one day an energy suddenly came up in me that was so powerful that I could hardly consider it my own. Yet it was the only essence of my entire existence. This energy whipped me up and I could hardly sleep for weeks. I had visions and dreams. And fantastic life situations manifested themselves. Then the divine wrath came up in me and burned away my old being. I was thrust into the deepest darkness. My ego recognized itself as a lie and shattered into a thousand pieces. I was on the verge of psychiatry. I could hear my thoughts as an echo in an isolated chamber of my head, I could feel how I was made up of two halves inside me, lying on top of each other like panes of glass. And there was a kind of center next to the left and right halves of my body, through which I was suddenly born into a new being through my crown chakra on a Pentecost Sunday. It was an absolute rebirth. For many days, streams of energy flowed through me in waves.
My whole body trembled, I had crying fits and cried myself free for days. Again and again I fell into maniacal laughter, it was a wild ride. And behind this darkness, it suddenly became light. A new morning came and I felt like a newborn child. From then on, everything was different. The old me no longer exists. I am now just space and being. Completely unaffected by everything that happens in the world and at the same time more involved than ever before. All hopes or wishes have disappeared, there is nothing left but the spontaneous flow of direct life.
A flame of life force burns in my heart. This flame is my only truth.
There is nothing more to say. Silence is the nature of Saturn. Silence is the nature of awakening.
This last process took about eighteen months in total.
And after that? After that, everything is different. The Zen master says: In the beginning, the tree is a tree. Then the tree is no longer a tree. And then the tree is a tree again.
Things are the same as before the trial, but different. Since there is no description for it, you should remain silent.
And you are suddenly faced with a complete void. As a human being, you are involved in a thousand events. As a seeker, you fill your life with all the contents of this search. You meditate, you read, you do rituals, breathing techniques, you attend courses and rejoice in every insight. And then suddenly you are where you wanted to be and have nothing more to do. All activities are suddenly meaningless. This can lead to a kind of enlightenment depression. And you no longer have to do other things, human things. You don’t have to learn anything anymore either, because all the truths lie before you like an open book. There is nothing more to read, nothing more to understand, because everything is completely clear and simple. An awakened person is directly connected to the cosmic consciousness, all information is directly available without having to acquire it.
The reason why the enlightened yogis live in asceticism is not because they achieve anything by doing so. They live this way because there is nothing else to do.
The contents of life disappear and leave room for the absolute, pure being. In my case, I lost interest in almost everything. But that’s wonderful, because there is nothing. It’s all just a game. I also lost the idea of sexuality in the process. My energies are never separate from other energies, everything is always connected, why should anything in me strive for connection? I am every consciousness of every creature, why would I want to connect with myself?
My body no longer has a need for sexual encounters, even if I were physically quite capable of the act.
But still, this is where life really begins. From now on you can refine, stabilize, deepen, be one with your divinity, there is an incredible dynamic in it.
And I was looking for this dynamic. I no longer move, I am moved by the fire within me. The action is always spontaneous, always new. Life itself has become the only content.
Nevertheless, an awakened person looks like an unawakened person to non-awakened people as long as he does not dress like a guru. Unawakened people cannot see awakening because they are limited. At most they perceive a higher energy, or they perceive an awakened person as too much or too exaggerated, or as apathetic and childish, or just like mad.
Since an awakened person only lives in the moment, they will also only react in the moment. They no longer have any limits, which means that they are allowed to do things that are rather unusual in society. Awakened people are like small children. They experience pain like everyone else, but they don’t suffer from it, because pain is just a sound. They can still whine and be angry, because it’s all part of living unhindered. Be happy if they just whine, they could piss on you too, it wouldn’t make any difference.
Life is just a play of our energy. It is a dance to a rhythm that is not man-made.
Live your life one hundred percent, no matter what happens. Laugh, cry, scream, dance, be absolutely direct. The door to the divine is the now.
Throw yourself into the great adventure of life completely free of fear. And do what is up to do. No more, no less. The now contains everything there is to know. Walk when there are paths, sit when there are none. Like a crocodile, always silent and attentive, but explosive in the now. Just as predators lie in wait and snap mercilessly and directly, we must aim for life, our divinity, our true self. Like animals on the prowl, and then the snake strikes, zap, and the fires burn. SAGHORA
One of the most practical things about being awakened is that you no longer experience inner obstacles, but only friends. You take every moment as it is.
Everything in you is liberated, there are no more blockages. Obstacles are only perceived as a situation in space. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you always like everything, being human is still our vehicle. Of course, we are also subject to rejection and affection, but Only on the level of the world that is in us, not us in it. It’s a game, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and on it goes, new tasks, new worlds, new failures, new successes. There is nothing to be afraid of. Everything is part of the story. Let’s dance.
And funnily enough, it is precisely the deity of limitation and restriction that leads us into this unlimited freedom of cosmic being. Saturna is the deity, we are her children. She is the great black time. When she eats us, we are our sacrifice to her. And when we cross the saturnine threshold to the highest consciousness with the awakening, then it is grace, karma and being that carries us across. Love is the trust we have in ourselves, trust is the fire in our heart, because that is where love is. I give myself into the fire of Kali every day, burn my ego remnants, let her dance me, only fire, no words. We dance on the graves because that is where our ego transforms. We dance, as a flame of burning corpses, because that is where our attachment burns. Nothing can kill us, we are life force and love.”
“Most of the truths of awakening can indeed be cognitively understood and even realized by unawakened people. But as long as the truth is only in the head, it has no value, because it would simply die with the head. As soon as it wobbles, nonduality is forgotten. Only when the truth is in the heart has it arrived and is indestructible. Our true self has all truth within it, without words and without knowledge. Moksha can only be attained through the heart, never through the head. Even Kundalini begins its true path upwards in the heart, to kiss the divine tongue above.“
“The most bizarre thing about the situation is that you can’t talk to anyone about the awakening, because everyone would just think you’re crazy. And you’re not even sure if that’s true. People then talk it away, explain it away in their world view, but they can’t actually perceive it. That makes you a very lonely person, there’s no one else in your circle of friends to stand next to you. And yet that’s not a problem at all, because there’s nothing you would miss. Everything is still there, there is no lack. It simply can’t be explained…”
The whole world is in us, not us in it.