Awakening causing physical discomfort?

[WhoAmI]

Hi,

In the last couple of weeks I've had several major awakening experiences.
They came about when I would see something or think about something, and focus on what is aware of that experience.
For a while there I would slip in and out of presence, and then... boom! Everything just comes into focus, becoming clearer and sharper.

Initially, it is pure bliss. My ego starts racing, but I can observe it rather effortlessly and it quiets down substantially. I am at peace and joy overcomes me.

Now, as I've mentioned before I have health issues which give me almost daily abdominal pain.
When I go deeper and deeper into awareness, however - the pain worsens. It just feels like by digestive system comes to a grinding halt, and it's very, very uncomfortable.

I can deal with it on the physical side, naturally - but my ego starts racing again ("Maybe I'm doing myself more harm than good" etc), and this time it's hard to quiet it down. I'm being pulled into unconsciousness once again.

This gives me great concern, and I would want to know if what I'm feeling is in accordance with what people here felt after awakening.

I guess I could just observe it and let it be, but I want to reassure that what I'm doing is natural and healthy, and not likely to be phsyically harmful...

Adyashanti says that after awakening awareness starts rearranging the body energetically, and whenever the energy encounters an energetic block it is experiences as physical discomfort (sort of like putting your hand in front of a water hydrant spouting water powerfully).

Have any of you experienced symptoms similar to what I've described?
Does it sound like a natural outcome of awakening?
Was it, in fact, an awakening experience?

[shappy]

Was it, in fact, an awakening experience?

No. It was just mind-trick. Relax, don't try so hard. Go out for a walk. Look at yourself in the mirror and smile. It's inevitable that it will happen. Allow it happen instead of forcing something to happen.

If I were with you, I'd give you a big hug. Step outside of yourself. Imagine for a second that you're standing beside yourself and watching your actions. What do you see? Panic? Anxiety? Give yourself a hug and a kiss and whisper in your ear that you'll be alright.

[Webwanderer]

WhoAmI, I think it is unlikely that awakening is "causing" physical discomfort. More likely it is making existing discomfort more recognizable. If one bothers to take inventory of the body, it is likely that one will find any number of sensantions that are generally out of imediate consciousness. They are there, but ignored and unnoticed.

In the severe pain that you are experiencing, open awareness may be making the degree of pain you feel more immediate, where before it was partially isolated.

Physical pain is caused by something, and for that I would not comment. If you had your hand in a fire I would not recommend focusing on transmuting the pain to a manageble sensation, I would recommend first doing something about the source of the pain. Once you have done all you can about the source, transmuting pain into undefined sensation becomes more practical. Experiencing pain in clear awareness makes that pain more managable than being unaware of it's full nature.

Hiding in a dark closet of mental concepts is not preferable to living in the light of awareness. The ego/mind will focus on anything it can to protect it's imagined existance, including the fear of pain.

[blueviceroy]

the body has needs that are entirely unlike our true self.
Educating yourself about them would be preferable to expecting them change because of a shift of awareness
I would recomend washing what is needing to be washed repairing what needs repairing and loving what needs loving

[WhoAmI]

Thanks for the replies, friends.

I think I wasn't clear - my physical body is taken care of in the world of form - to the best of what medicine has to offer.
I have not neglected it, hoping that spiritual awakening would heal it.

Just to be clear

[Agnieszka]

"Spiritual work" can in fact heal many of our physical illnesses, better than any medical treatment alone.
Funny, but one of the most exquisite moments of Presence happened to me during the peak of an excruciating headache

[astaroth]

Hi!

I have experienced something similar.

Fear was always accompanying me for as long as I can remember. This fear brought me here.
When going deeper into the now, there was an unpleasant feeling I couldn't grasp and what gave me the feeling that I'm doing something wrong. I have posted this question here in the forum.
http://www.inner-growth.info/spiritual_ ... f=4&t=3274
I wasn't as clear about what's going on inside as I'm maybe are at the moment.

Now I know, that it is the fear inside me that was too scary to look at - because there was nothing in perticular to look at. You can observe your thoughts because they are more "solid" - it's more difficult to face emotions, espacially when you have cultivated them thoughout your life and you don't recognize them any more - because you have got so extremely used to them. You don't know reality any more without them. They have gotten part of what you think is reality.

I can imagine that your physical pain has the same root. An emotional root. It's your painbody, like my fear is my painbody. My mind was mostly acting only for one reason: To oppress this fear. Like society tells us, I have unconsciously tried to use my mind to sing me calming songs, to do something inside or outisde for the reason not to see and experiece this fear. But, of course, this lullabies could never really numb the fear.

Gaining clarity about your inner room is the first and maybe most important step to take care of it. I hope you will.

Greets,
astaroth

[dancer]

Have any of you experienced symptoms similar to what I've described?
Does it sound like a natural outcome of awakening?
Was it, in fact, an awakening experience?

Yes, I have experienced exactly what you are talking about. It was congealed energy, the pain body, egoic stuctures. It becomes more active when it is being released so I felt it a lot more. However, at no time did I feel that everything was not exactly as it should be. I didn't know on a conscious level, but somehow there was a knowing that what was happening was ok. In my situation the pain became less and less over time, but I also noticed that the pain came from different levels and so it really came and went for a very long time.

[sparks]

I've had something similar happen a few times.

There's a method called "Focusing" where you feel into a sensation and get a "felt sense" for it. You then try to describe it or use a phrase that the sensation would want to say. The feeling then changes and needs another description. This goes on until the "clench" relaxes. This could take minutes, or weeks of "off and on" tuning in. A few times, as the sensation relaxed, there would be this rush of energy and my mind would start racing in a sort of re-examining of the past. It's as if the hard-drive in my mind was rewriting itself to clean up the illusions that the "clench" was causing, and rewriting it with more accurate information. During this time, which could last up to 2 hours, memories stream through and get explained to me. When it's done, I'm exhausted.

When it comes to physical "rewriting", the process is a bit different. Burt Harding gives a description of the 3 stages of emotion:

Dense feeling
Active feeling
Pure feeling

Dense feeling is when it's frozen and very unconscious...you can't feel what it is, but you can feel the effect of it. It feels heavy, stuck, painful, low energy.

Active feeling is when the energy starts moving. The mind races, the body surges with emotion...it's very active. This is when "not getting caught in the story" is very important. Attention needs to remain on the sensations, but the stories should be acknowledged and allowed to pass.

Pure feeling is when the wound is healed and the energy is pure and flowing. This is the "bliss" that comes after a healing.


Eckhart said in PON that when you start transmuting the painbody, it may produce aches and pains in different parts of the body, but with continued awareness they will pass.


So, just as a feeling can shift and need a different description, a pain can actually move to different parts of the body as it gets observed. In fact, some of the unpleasant symptoms (in my experience) may be due to the mind/body trying to remove a "stuck" pain. Someone who always swallows their anger might end up with a cough that releases the energy bit by bit, but isn't successful in removing it completely, so it becomes a chronic cough. This is what happens when someone erupts in anger frequently and you wonder why they never run out. It's only a pressure relief, not a cure.

The last thing I've noticed during this process is that sometimes when I have a moment of awakening, I realize how tight I've been. There are some seriously sore spots...muscles that are in a constant clench. Just relaxing a bit causes them to stretch and hurt, which then tells me in a very loud and obvious way where my attention needs to go next. Often it is too overwhelming for me to accomplish anything right then and there. It's sort of like coming out of anesthesia. When stuck in mind, the body can feel numb. When you awaken a bit, you feel the body more...all of it.

Hope that helps. Just remember, there's a higher intelligence that is guiding the whole process, so no matter how "wrong" we may get it, we'll get steered back on track soon enough.

[WhoAmI]

I just got back to this thread after a few days.
Excellent posts were added.

Thank you so much for your advice.