Vedic Community Forum

Thank you for posting this conversation Acharya Shunya! As usual, so much of what you say lands so deep within me. To follow on Yogesh's comment about trauma below, I wrote this in my journal after listening: Strangely, one of my traumas is a face of spiritual opening itself. At first I did not understand this realization when it hit me. Then I realized that to some degree my spiritual growth feels traumatizing because in the culture I grew up in, I’m not supposed to feel these nondual things, think these nondual things, even so much as imagine these nondual things ... let alone perceive them as Real. This is what in the world I live in is called crazy. This is what gets you shunned from socially acceptable circles. This is what can forever change the regard with which your friends and families hold you, for the worse. This represents a break from reality as understood by the people and world around me. No wonder I continue to feel traumatized, sometimes even moreso the more spiritually open I become. This is why Doubt -- despite decades of sporadic personal spiritual experiences of various kinds -- digs in its heels and generates resistance, a counterweight, to the very expansion I feel happening within. It's time for me to fully allow the Light of my Real Self to extinguish the Doubt my ego projects in its self defense. What follows from that is Ishwara's unfolding for me. What and who doesn't stay in my life, I no longer need. Idam na mama, swaha!