Terminology Warning - awakening

I have recently been trying to understand my awakening. It is such a powerful process yet I wonder how much understanding there is of awakening; I hope here to begin to understand mine.

I have always talked about my awakening as something that happened in December 1974. It began with a drunken meltdown – hitting bottom. I was brought up in middle-class academia, by that I mean I was on the exam conveyor belt leading to a degree and work-life. Awareness and decision-making meant nothing, it was just academia; in fact I studied maths because it came easiest to me. With qualifications I started work at a good computer consultancy but I had no idea what I was doing. Whilst I had studied well for final exams, I had no personal discipline especially in the workplace. This consultancy was a breath of fresh air because the people were interesting, and because it was up West so my private life was work-drinking followed by a time up West before eventually ending up home drunk. To begin with the consultancy found me interesting but after a while it became clear to them I was no asset, and within a year they were pushing me out – wage review was minimal. I took affront, and moved to Sevenoaks where I really showed what I was made of at the time – nothing. Sevenoaks, the company, my life was completely meaningless there, and drink began to bring my life down. It was all so meaningless, and I was going nowhere. In the end that misery was ended by a meltdown. I had been bullied by the operating staff – meaningless banter, so as a joke I put up a computing department memo from the boss questioning the treatment of programming staff by operating staff. I signed the boss’s name. Now the boss was typical of the lives of those Sevenoaks people at the time, I would describe them now as wage-slaves hiding from any form of awareness. I was escorted off the premises!! I was not angry, not interested in my job, I was just nowhere.

At nearly 23 my first reaction was to run to my parents where I recovered from the physical state I had fallen into. But my parents’ home was the last place for awareness. I have only one memory of that extended Xmas – maybe 4 weeks, and that was standing outside a pub where they were having an office party thinking I would like to be that sort of “happy” but it had nothing to do with me or my life.

I returned to London to a cubicle job in Hounslow, it was awful but I had discipline – I was working there for money, a decision I had never made before. But my awakening started to take form in my Chiswick bedsit. I think life in that bedsit was one long experience (jhana). I was dabbling with meditation and yoga, but it was just experiences coming through. That bedsit was amazing.

At the first consultancy I had met Wendy who recognised something in me long before I ever did; I never knew me or her then. On returning to Chiswick I reconnected with her, and she introduced me to the people of the Arts Centre. Those people were so important to me, because they validated all I was going through. Rather than being an isolated computer jerk in a Chiswick bedsit with strange things happening, I became a writer because that was how I expressed the experiences. I remember long hours of conversation over 6 months, I don’t know about what – it was a great time.

This phase ended with Belgium. Then I was a writer starting up, and there were people around the Arts to whom that meant something. One such invited me to Belgium taking me under his wing. He introduced me to people in Brussels, he took me down to the Ardennes where Castaneda’s Journey to Ixtlan became more than words, and then in a small cottage I learned to be alone with my writing. Then after a short trip to Paris I returned to London.

At Chiswick I had learnt how meaningless computing was to me and had started on the compassion road. I had worked in an assessment centre, and that gave my compassion some meaning. Returning to London I started working at an assessment centre in Ealing. At this point my writing went to the back burner, I was not then a writer.

Drink returned in Ealing, and that connects with my not writing. After a year I had some money saved, and had a vague notion of travelling the world. I reached Saint-Valery-en-Caux where I either lost or had my money stolen. The Youth Hostel owner lent me return fare to the UK, sadly I think I was too self-absorbed to have paid him back, and I returned to become a teacher.

It is this above process that I have in the past considered my awakening but I now think far from it. Whilst teaching I held onto this period of partial awakening, I held onto the creativity as being meaningful – the result of Chiswick and the Arts people. But as a person I was a child. The presence of the Arts people dwindled in my life as I was not expressing my creativity except through teaching. And at the same time the importance of drink grew. Spirituality and creativity were never going to leave me, but I was a child.

I now think of my life as having two childhoods. The first childhood was that of middle-class academia, a childhood of relative academic success leading to academic arrogance and hitting bottom when I was nearly 23. From hitting bottom a second childhood began, a spiritual childhood that started with the creativity and moved into compassion. Now this spirituality is inimical to this monetaristic world we live in, so my spiritual childhood was concerned with coming to terms with this inimical world.

And how did I cope? I turned to drink – shame on me. The door had been opened, I had been told it was the door by the Arts people, I personally knew it was a door, and I closed it with the drink. The creative space was always in me, and usually came out in Summer holidays especially walking. But for the rest of the year my life was limited compassion and drink.

If asked at the time I would say I was on the Path (following an awakening) – a spiritual Path, but I was learning about spirituality – slowly because of the drink. At the same time I was a sexual child. At teacher training I started relationships, and they gradually increased over my time teaching in London. But I only really learnt during Peyton Place where I disastrously fell in love. Whilst PP only lasted just over two years, it dominated my sexual and relationship life for 6/7 years until I went to Africa.

During Peyton Place drink increased - and for two years afterwards, but then fortunately an acupuncturist told me “don’t waste your money or stop drinking” and it seemed sensible to me to stop; with some difficulties over 6 months that was the end of the drink.

But the drink had stymied my spiritual and creative growth from 1984 -1992. However in that time there had been a growth in political awareness that eventually led to political activity for 5 years; political awareness is also part of maturity.

In Southern Africa my sex life returned with a vengeance. It was part of a freedom that Botswana brought, just stepping off the plane and escaping all the shackles that was UK life freed my consciousness. Whilst there are some wonderful spiritual and creative people in the UK it is a repressive ignorant society, and being in Botswana was simply freedom. The risky excesses of Botswana also saw the end of my sex life, and whilst there was still some desire left it was mostly concerned with finding a relationship but that also dwindled soon after Botswana.

Nyanga was important. Peyton Place had left me with a “pain body” although I was not particularly aware of it. Once spirituality started to come back into my life more in Botswana – after the political period of Brighton in the late 80s, I began thinking about spiritual cleansing. This led me to Nyanga where I had a powerful night expunging Peyton Place – and to some extent expunging my father.

That brings me to the mid-life review which started soon after Nyanga when I was 46 (2 childhoods of 23 years ). The mid-life review is much about Buddhism, I accepted Buddhism at Wat Phra Keau in the Xmas of 2000; spiritually I have never looked back. Once I retired in 2006 an important aspect of maturity came with the study of Buddhism – sila, moral integrity. A certain level of morality came after hitting bottom but it was not a priority during this spiritual childhood. But it was the first thing I studied after retirement, my first mature act? Once retired I began writing profusely – although not always creatively, but that creativity has begun in earnest now.

It is September of 2017, and I have been considering awakening for 2/3 months now. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that in my terms I have had an awakening. I connect awakening to the term mature. The time that I awakened after hitting bottom led to a second spiritual childhood reaching a time in which I could call myself mature around about the mid-life review.

There is no doubt that the Buddha experienced awakening – under the Bodhi tree, and a key understanding of Buddhism is the three characteristics of anatta – no self, dukkha – suffering or pain and anicca – permanence, of which dukkha is key to considering my own awakening. But how important is awakening to his teaching? This leads also to an additional question, who are now the teachers? The monks. Have they experienced an awakening? If they haven’t how can they discuss it? This is no criticism of monks, for example Buddhadasa, as far as I know, did not go through pain and suffering yet he shows great insight – far more than I have.

The Buddha was awakened, and he was enlightened. There is no way I could ever consider myself enlightened. I draw a huge distinction between awakening and enlightenment. This is not to belittle my awakening but to recognise that a process of awakening can start and not be enlightenment. I have no idea at the moment where Eckhart puts himself on this awakening-enlightenment scale. There is no doubt that Eckhart experienced an awakening, there is no doubt he is a wise man, his wisdom far exceeding anything I can discuss. But does he consider himself enlightened like the Buddha?

This is not an enlightenment “pissing” contest, it is concerned with validation of the awakening experience. I mentioned here about a friend of a friend who was watching 5 Gateways movie and started crying because of what was described as a “second childhood” experience. Suppose this crying was as a result of a lack of validation, a validation that I was fortunate to get through the Arts people. Was her awakening enlightenment? I don’t know but suggest not. Was my awakening enlightenment? Definitely not. But it was valid as an awakening. Awakening needs to be encouraged, and a maturing process of vaguely going East or vaguely Ascending (by this I do not mean that 5 Gateways is vague but that there is a vagueness surrounding some of Ascension) is in my view not sufficient. Eckhart’s awakening became a realisation that he was a spiritual teacher, there is no way I was a spiritual teacher despite my awakening experience. I had no discipline, I had limited sila, these came when I matured but it took a second childhood to get them. Yet the awakening was valid. My awakening was validated by the Arts people, but how many other awakening experiences do not get validated? This is important.

I have examined my life in terms of mature awakening because such a process is inimical to much of society. There is a tendency within Buddhism to avoid consideration of awakening because it is not good practice to attach to such experiences. But avoiding them is an error as well. Detached celebration of awakening is valid. Validating awakening experiences is a communal activity that is part of a legacy awakened people need to pass on. That is the purpose of this description.

Eckhart Tolle awakened and after a couple of years decided he was a spiritual teacher. After an experience following hitting bottom “For the next five months, I lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss. After that, it diminished somewhat in intensity, or perhaps it just seemed to because it became my natural state.... It wasn't until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me .... A time came when, for a while, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.... Before I knew it, I had an external identity again. I had become a spiritual teacher” [Introduction to Power of Now]. Since then his teaching has developed but not fundamentally changed; his decision to be a spiritual teacher was mature.

I must mention the word enlightenment even though it is one I don’t use. I do not see a mature awakening as enlightenment. I take as an act of faith two cases of enlightenment – the Buddha and Jesus Christ (Ascension); I do not understand enlightenment as I am not enlightened so it has to be faith - I normally do not use the word “faith” either. In no way am I enlightened although I consider I have had a mature awakening. This is an important distinction to me.