Harley J

I am a field biologist who has always wondered what the point of existence is. I became a biologist because it just made sense to me to choose a profession where I would work outside. I just viewed ourselves as "naked apes." I have always been searching for the why, even though I was an atheist and my story at the time was that there was no point, that we just lived and died. I was a pretty heavy drinker when I was younger but always in a celebratory setting. As my brother is fond of saying, we drink to remember, not to forget. My brother and I had just gotten back from a trip to Belize that left me completely energized and inspired; especially the part of the trip that took us to the Mayan ruins of Tikal. We took a side trip into Guatemala to see the ruins. Being surrounded by the most amazing jungle I have ever been in and all the while exploring such a fascinating ancient civilization did amazing things for my soul! I was living with my brother at the time. While he was away for work, I would get up and just start pacing in the hallway and writing. I wasn't sure where this ritual was heading, but it felt so good I just gave myself over to the process. When I would go to bed, I would often have something on my mind that was bothering me. Then, I would have a dream that would address it, either symbolically or directly. Then, I would wake up refreshed and feel like I had resolved whatever was bothering me. So I spent a couple of days just pacing and writing. During this time I was having flashes of different conversations and experiences I had during my life. (this is the part that feels so in line with an NDE) I realized that everywhere I have ever been was right where I needed to be. This continued on until one day I wrote the word "love" and just collapsed on the ground and wept. I wept the most joyous, cathartic tears I have ever wept. After that I could see energy as a type of white haze around trees, fruits, and veggies. It was no doubt a manic episode, but it was accompanied by the most profound sense of peace I have ever known in my life. My writing concluded with an equation. Beta + Alpha = 1 (emotions + Fear) + (Confidence + Ego) = 1 where Confidence equals negative fear (-fear) and our egos also work on fear, the fear of loss of control over our emotions. Only through Love can we dissolve our fear and our ego to live in ego-less confidence, otherwise known as Enlightenment. And I realized that our egos are the biological origin of oppression, and the only way to dissolve this oppression is through love. We're evolving as a species and in order to do this, we need to boost our confidence through kindness, participation in art, and fearlessly going after our passions as opposed to inducing fear (oppressing) others, which is the old way of gaining confidence. That emotional freedom was the ultimate form of freedom. For what I believe was a couple of weeks I was able to live in this beautiful realization and have the most amazing connections with people where I would have a conversation with someone and a new piece of the puzzle would be revealed during our conversation. During this time I was completely sober. I wasn't drinking any alcohol or ingesting any kind of drugs or psychedelics. But of course I gradually came down the mountain and the amazing sensation wore off and I thought it was because of something I did wrong. My analytical, scientific brain kicked in and I wondered what the heck happened to me. I tried to oppress myself in order to tame my ego and this backfired spectacularly. I was so confused, scared, and lonely. This was 2003, so there weren't a lot of people talking about energy stuff and spiritual awakenings. I found the California Institute of Integral Studies online and it seemed like a perfect fit to figure out what the heck happened to me, as well as get an education in Anthropology. Upon arriving there, I quickly found out it wasn't a safe space to discuss it as I confided in one of my professors about my experience and he said that he was sorry, he didn't believe in them. And his wife, who to this day is still the most powerful, brilliant person I have ever met, was super critical of people claiming to have spiritual awakenings to the point of ridiculing people courageous enough to say they had one. I wasn't one of those people since I felt completely shot down by her husband. But the education in post-colonial anthropology was so incredible, that I thought if anyone could prove they didn't exist, it's these people. But sadly they were so powerful and brilliant and convincing, and I was in such a vulnerable place with my spiritual awakening, that I tried to deny that it happened to me, and through this process I had what I consider a psychotic break. I was just so confused and unable to reconcile the most amazing experience of my life, with the most amazing intellectual education of my life, and I would just cry uncontrollably. I scared the heck out of my poor parents. But during grad school I met a fellow classmate who was a Jungian analyst and once a month we would meet for dream group and use our dreams as guides for healing. It remains one of the most profound experiences of my life and is one of the main reasons I was able to survive grad school. I allowed myself to participate in a Kripalu Yoga Teacher training workshop, as well as go to Maine in the middle of winter to stay in a cabin to work through my pain. This was a particularly powerful experience that involved me working through a lot of pain and howling and making all kinds of crazy noises. Last winter I had another rather intense healing session where I made the realization that this waking life is also a dream, and when I'm able to surrender in meditation, my eyes go into what I can only explain as REM. Which makes sense from a standpoint that our dreams are a way for us to heal. Twenty-three years is a long time to ruminate on something, especially a spiritual awakening that allowed me to live in the moment for a short, blissful time. But I have such a stubborn, analytical mind that I just continue to ask the questions over and over again of "Why me? How? What am I supposed to do?" But I am gradually getting more and more okay with it. After all, allowing a spiritual awakening to ruin me would be a terrible waste of one! But it's been a long road, and I hope me writing this might help someone else who might be struggling. As I understand it now, blending both my spiritual and intellectual teachings... This life is a dream, and our reality is partially composed of our emotional and imaginative projections. That we're in consciousness and different things come into our life as a means for us to grow and evolve, just like in our dreams. That it is too complex for even the most intellectually gifted minds to comprehend. That's why Buddhism has the mind games to help you wake up. And that you're much, much more likely to attain enlightenment by dancing than you are by reading a book. That because of our oppressive culture, white men experience a lot of emotional pain because we haven't been properly socialized to deal with our trauma, and because we have so much privilege, we end up projecting this pain and causing a ton of suffering. That the world is made up of stories.